One Wild Texas Night, page 8
The moment she did, his mouth went dry, and he forgot the fire, the smoke, the smell, the metal box and everything else except looking at her. Her waist was tiny, her skin looked smooth and she looked soft and irresistible. She kept on the jeans and ran the hose over herself and then turned to hold the hose out to him. When she turned around, she still wore her jeans, but above her waist, she wore only her lacy white bra, which was wet and clinging. Her skimpy bra revealed lush curves that made him instantly aroused, wanting to reach for her.
She was breathtaking and incredibly sexy. She splashed water from the hose over her full breasts and he fought to keep from walking closer, taking her into his arms and kissing her senseless while he caressed those gorgeous breasts. As she ran the hose over herself, she had her eyes closed. “Oh, that is such a relief,” she said softly to herself.
An intense urge swept him to close the slight distance between them and take her in his arms. He wanted to step close and remove her bra. He wanted to fill his hands with her full breasts that looked so soft.
“I’m sorry to go first,” she said with her eyes still squeezed tightly closed while she held the hose above her head and let water shower over her.
He yanked off his shirt, tossing it aside as he walked to her, wrapped one arm around her narrow waist while he took the hose from her hand and ran it swiftly over himself and tossed it aside.
Startled, her eyes flew open. “Jake?” She looked up at him, and he saw her expression change.
“You’re absolutely gorgeous,” he said. He was already breathless. Eagerness made him shake, and he was rock hard.
She blinked. “I thought you were angry with me,” she said.
He didn’t answer but gazed into her big green eyes and saw the transformation in her expression as her lips parted and her gaze shifted to his mouth. Her hands rested on his chest, and she slipped one arm across his shoulders while she ran her other hand over him, tangling her fingers in his chest hair.
His heart pounded, and he could barely get his breath. He unfastened her bra and pushed it down so he could cup her breast in his hand. She gasped and closed her eyes while she leaned closer and tightened her arm around him.
She was so incredibly soft. Her full breast filled his hand. Her eyes fluttered open, and she looked at his mouth as she drew his head down. He placed his lips on hers, his tongue slowly stroking hers as he caressed her breast.
She moaned softly, moving her hips against him.
For minutes, eons, seconds—first it seemed long and then it seemed short—he kissed her and caressed her. She was wet, warm and bare. He wanted her with all his being. He was aroused, wanting her more than he could remember desiring any woman ever.
He wanted to be inside her, to make love to her and forget the consequences.
Suddenly she wiggled slightly, leaning away, and then she stepped out of his embrace and shook her head. “Jake, stop. We were at each other’s throats only a few minutes ago, the family feud still alive and strong. I can’t do this. You’re a Reed. We’re not going to tangle our lives and emotions,” she said, stepping back, grabbing up her shirt and holding it in front of her as she raced away from him, unlocking the door with the key he had given her and disappearing inside the house.
“Dammit,” he said quietly as he let her go. He ached with wanting her. He wanted to bury himself in her soft body, to have her fiery, bone-melting, unforgettable kisses.
He groaned as if he had a terrible wound. She was right. They had over a century of feuding between their families, and he suspected there would be plenty more fussing between Claire and him when he cleaned up that metal box, because he was absolutely certain it would have the Reed name cut into it.
Even as he made the decision to let her go and thought about the feud, their differences and the anger between them with more to come, he wanted her. He craved her, wanted her in his arms. He was ready to make love to her and couldn’t keep images of her gorgeous body out of his thoughts. At the moment he didn’t give a damn about the feud, the metal box, their differences or the future. He just wanted to make love with her.
He ached to caress her lush, soft, fantastic breasts. She was breathtaking, beautiful, the sexiest woman he had ever kissed. And she wasn’t trying to be sexy. What if she wanted to be? That thought could send him up in flames, and he tried to shift his thinking.
“Damn,” he muttered under his breath, clenching his fists. He had to ignore her, forget kissing her. “Impossible,” he whispered to himself. He would never forget kissing her. He couldn’t possibly forget the feel of her breasts in his hands.
She had him tied in knots. They had spent their lives disliking each other, fighting each other or ignoring each other until their first kiss—that sexy kiss like no other he had ever experienced.
He groaned, grabbed the hose and let it shower cold water over him, wishing he could wash away memories of her body, her mouth, her soft breasts, her kisses, but he knew that he would never forget them.
How he wished some woman would come along who could wipe her out of his memory.
Claire Blake. A Blake with a family of relatives who had fought his for over a century. He had to forget her.
He knew he never would. Not in this lifetime. Worse, he wondered if he would ever stop longing to kiss her.
Swearing quietly, he tossed down the hose, which hadn’t really cooled him. He turned off the water, gathered his shirt and boots, and headed for the house. She had hooked the screen door, and he couldn’t get in. He rang the bell and waited.
Finally, she came to the door, and he wanted to groan, to gnash his teeth, to ask her if this was a new form of torture that she was using because of the feud.
She had a towel wrapped around her head, hiding her hair, and another wrapped around her gorgeous body—a body that had to be very naked beneath that green towel that matched her eyes.
“Sorry, I didn’t intend to lock you out of your house,” she said, her cheeks turning pink as she gave him a long, intense stare and he wondered what she was thinking.
She was looking so gorgeous, so appealing, that he couldn’t find his voice. What was wrong with him?
She must have picked up on his discomfort, because she suddenly looked self-conscious. “This wasn’t such a good idea,” she said. “I’ll see you later. I need to get dressed.” Then she turned to walk away, and he watched her go, that towel clinging damply to her bottom, her long, bare legs revealing that the lower part of her was as gorgeous and sexy as the upper part. Her legs were marvelous. Long, long legs that he would like to feel wrapped around him.
He groaned and closed his eyes to try to stop thinking about having sex with her. He opened his eyes quickly. He wanted to look at her as long as he had a chance. She would come back all covered in something that would completely hide her fabulous body.
He went to his suite, closing the door. From today on, he would never see Claire the way he had before. Every inch of his being wanted her in his cabin and in his arms again. In his bed.
He swore as he got ready to shower and walked into his big bathroom. It was an architectural gem, with a curved shower, huge sunken tub and a glass wall that afforded him an unobstructed view of the outside, though no one could see in. One wall held a built-in floor-to-ceiling tank of exotic tropical fish, while a floor-to-ceiling mirror comprised another wall. Right now, he saw only the shower. He walked into it and turned on the cold water. “Do your stuff,” he said to the cold-water faucet. “I have to forget her. A Blake. I don’t want to entangle my life with her. As if she would let me. Oh damn. How long will it take me to forget her when she lives on the neighboring ranch? And that is my family’s box out there, and it was her thieving dad and brothers that stole it from my family.”
Jake shook his head. He could never be friends with her, never trust her. He shouldn’t ever kiss her again, not even touch her. He’d be polite, let her stay at his cabin because he had already issued the invitation, but she would soon move on, and when she did, he needed to go back to the way it always had been—not speaking to each other, never socializing, absolutely never kissing.
He groaned. Why was the woman whose family had spent lifetimes feuding with his the one with the hottest kisses he had ever known?
He shook his head. He had to avoid her. She might make that easy for him to do, because she’d be angry as a bear when he took that metal box away from her.
He felt another hot flash of anger over the stolen box. Her brothers had probably stolen it and given it to their dad, who’d kept it and everything in it. He thought about calling his father and telling him, but his dad was probably happily fishing and enjoying his retirement—there was no point in bringing up a bad subject that still didn’t have a good solution.
Meanwhile, he needed to get himself away from Claire. They had no future together. So why couldn’t he stop thinking of how she looked in that green towel? Damn. The cold water had done nothing to help him.
* * *
Claire dried her hair and stared at herself in the mirror, but she didn’t see her reflection. She saw Jake’s dark eyes on her, remembered his hands moving lightly over her, remembered his mouth on hers as he kissed her.
Her heartbeat raced. She shouldn’t be staying at his cabin, shouldn’t have undressed in front of him. But the fumes from the fires had permeated her clothing and took her breath. She thought if she still wore her bra, she would be as covered as she always was in a swimsuit.
It must have been a psychological thing, because he had changed the instant she had revealed her bra. For a moment there outside, she’d been caught up in memories of his hands caressing her and the hungry look in his eyes.
With a shake of her head, she tried to stop thinking about Jake. They didn’t have a future. Their families had fought since before Texas was a state. And he had accused her family of stealing that big metal box that belonged to her dad. It was her family’s box. It had survived the fire, and she wanted it. It was rightfully hers. Her brothers had done some bad things, she knew, but they wouldn’t steal.
She felt anger, but it wasn’t as strong as other feelings: hunger for his kisses, yearning for his arms around her, for his hands caressing her. Despite everything, she wanted to be in his arms again. She moaned softly, desiring him, knowing she shouldn’t, that she had to forget him and banish these taunting memories once and for all. And she needed to move out of his cabin as soon as she could and put distance between them. She looked at her palatial surroundings, the big bedroom with an elegant canopied four-poster bed that she suspected was an antique, the antique mirror with an elegant carved frame. Cabin was not the right description for his home in the woods. It was a castle. But it was Jake’s, and as much as she reveled in its beauty, she had to leave it.
She didn’t think her brothers had stolen that box from him or his family. That would be breaking the law, and they didn’t do that. It was just a big metal box, and there were probably millions that looked just like it. There were scratches on it, but no readable names. It would have been obvious if her brothers had stolen it. They would have bragged about it eventually.
She was angry that Jake had insisted from the first second he saw the box that it had belonged to his family.
She shouldn’t have gotten so chummy with him. She shouldn’t even be staying with him, but she’d never made friends with neighboring ranchers and had nowhere else to go. Her friends were in Dallas, friends she had made growing up, friends of her family, neighbors she’d had in town.
She considered her employees friends, but with this fire, they had terrible problems, too. They needed her help probably more than she needed theirs.
She and Jake were part of feuding families, and that wasn’t going to change. The metal box was just one issue. There would constantly be other issues, because they saw life in different ways, and they didn’t like each other’s relatives.
She knew she was vulnerable because of her isolated lifestyle. She didn’t often go to Dallas, where she had friends and at least some social life, but on the ranch, she was alone, in charge, and that made a difference in her relations with everyone who worked for her. Particularly the guys.
And then came Jake. Never had kisses excited her the way his had...
But he definitely wasn’t the man for her—a Reed, like the other Reeds.
She should get out of his house, go into Dallas to her condo and never look back. But how could she do that when she was needed at the ranch? Her home had been totally destroyed. She had called her insurance agent briefly, but he couldn’t do anything while the area was still burning and off-limits. She’d called the sheriff, her employees, her builder—the list was long. She had to stay and, once the fire was totally out, work with people to get her land cleared and, eventually, her house rebuilt.
There were so many things to do, but dominating her thoughts were memories of being in Jake’s arms, holding him and kissing him as if they shared the last kisses of their lives.
“No,” she whispered, shaking her head. She wanted to shut off the memories, stop thinking about him and his kisses and his hands on her, incredibly gentle, sexy and breathtaking. She needed to move on with her life and get back to her routine, where Jake had no part in her day.
But right now, that wasn’t going to happen.
At least not as long as she was living in his house, kissing him, spending time with him and getting to know him and getting more obligated to him. She was wearing one of his shirts right now. How was she going to get free of him when she needed to stay in the area, take care of her business and live at his house because she had none?
She shook her head again and raked her fingers through her hair. She had to get Jake out of her thoughts. She was sure when she was out of his house and away from him, she would be able to bank these memories of him. She had to, because he was consuming all her thoughts now.
She groaned, tossed her head to get her long red braid away from her face and tried to think about what she needed to do, getting out a list she had made and retrieving her phone. She went to a desk in her room, got a notebook and her phone, and called her insurance agent to talk to him again about her ranch house. As she waited, she glanced down at a picture on the desk. It was in an old-fashioned wooden frame with flowers and held an old black-and-white picture of a little boy. She picked it up and looked at it and recognized the tousled black hair—this must be one of Jake’s childhood pictures. He’d been a cute little kid. She stared at it. “You’re messing up my life,” she said. “Don’t kiss me again.”
“I can’t make that promise,” came a familiar deep voice behind her.
Seven
“Good grief, don’t sneak up on me,” Claire exclaimed, feeling her cheeks flush with embarrassment at him overhearing what she’d said about his kisses.
He looked amused with a faint smile as he came into the room. “I don’t think I was too sneaky in my boots. They make a bit of noise on the wood floors,” he said, and she could hear the laughter in his voice. She knew he was teasing, but he was annoying her again, and her embarrassment deepened.
“Well, I didn’t hear you, and I wish you hadn’t heard me.”
He kept walking toward her, and her pulse beat faster as he came within inches and tilted her chin up with his finger. She felt opposing reactions—she was annoyed that he was laughing, but she was turned on by his nearness. He was inches away, and that made her heart race and made her want him to lean close and kiss her even though she shouldn’t. She was accustomed to controlling a lot of things and the people in her life. She couldn’t do anything about the weather and fires, but people she could usually manage. But she couldn’t manage Jake. He didn’t work for her. He was independent, doing what he wanted to do, and he was a wild card in her life. She didn’t know what he would do next. And she was far too drawn to him physically when she should avoid him, because they were still and forever would be feuding neighbors. How had she thought they could be friends? They were steeped in their family feud that would never change.
“You know, if looks could kill, I’d be stretched out on the floor,” he said, and she heard the laughter in his voice that just made her more embarrassed and more angry.
“I think we need a lot more distance between us,” she said, but the words came out breathlessly and she was lost gazing into his dark eyes that made her heart beat even faster and her desire more obvious. She couldn’t get her breath because she knew he was going to kiss her, and she knew she was going to kiss him in return when she shouldn’t. She should resist and get a wall between them.
She couldn’t stop the anger she felt toward him, but desire was there just as strong. She couldn’t understand her own reactions to him. She had never felt this way about any other man before. And then she didn’t care. She just wanted his kiss, and her gaze went to his mouth as his arm slipped around her waist and he drew her to her feet.
His lips brushed hers lightly. She moaned softly, winding her arm around his neck and leaning into him, feeling his strong body against her. His fantastic body. Her heart pounded as she kissed him in return. “I wasn’t going to do this ever again,” she whispered.
“Yeah, I know,” he said as he brushed another light kiss on her lips and then her ear. “I wasn’t going to do this again, either,” he whispered in her ear, his warm breath tickling her, making her want his mouth on hers more than ever. “You want to kiss me as badly as I want to kiss you.”
“You and I are bitter enemies, Jake,” she said, knowing she meant those words as a reminder to herself as much as to him. Even as she declared them enemies, she ran her fingers into his thick hair and brushed a kiss on his mouth. She should step away, stop him now, but she wanted him with all her being. From the moment he touched her to slip his arm around her, it didn’t matter that he was a Reed. It didn’t matter that she was angry with him. Her decision to avoid kissing him had vanished like smoke in the wind.
