Rough Wrangler, Tender Kisses Read online

  Hot need swirled through him, over him, and crazed, he flung his clothes atop hers on the floor. The world was a roaring blur as they tangled and tossed in his bed.

  This is madness, Caitlin’s brain tried to tell her, but she was past listening. There was only this bed and this man and the delicious things his hands and his tongue were doing to her and she surrendered to the dazzling sweetness, and to the wild, stirring needs of her own body.

  Wade Barclay was driving her over the edge of reason and she didn’t care. She was driving him, too, she could see it in the hunger deep within his glinting eyes, feel it in the rough and tender handling of her body as he kneaded and tasted and touched. Responsive as a wilted flower to sunshine and spring rain, she awakened as if from a deep slumber, her body revitalized and wildly alive. Gasping, clinging to him, to his sweat-slickened muscles and overpowering strength, she squirmed and moaned and dragged her hands across his chest and through his midnight hair, wanting . . . wanting . . .

  She didn’t know exactly what she wanted, she only knew she wanted more of it and Wade gave it to her, his mouth relentless on hers, alternately savage and gentle, plundering and soothing.

  He studied and explored her entire body and boldly she pushed him over and did the same to him. A deep, tortured groan came from his throat as she touched his huge, thickened manhood and she drew back, alarmed, but he caught her hand and chuckled harshly.

  “Don’t stop now, sweetheart. The fun is just beginning—for both of us.”

  A desperate smile broke from her as she gazed into his darkened blue eyes. “I’ve no intention of stopping, Wade,” she informed him, thrilled by the effect her hands were having on him, delighted by her power to arouse him even further, to make this hard-muscled, always-in-control man sweat and burn with the same uncontrollable desire that was jolting like a runaway train through her.

  She stroked and teased him then, every engorged inch of him, until he groaned again and suddenly rolled her over, once more trapping her body beneath his own.

  “Two can play that game, princess,” he told her roughly, his breath warm on her face, and she soon found herself a prisoner of aching need as his mouth suckled cleverly at her breast and his fingers stroked the nest of golden curls between her thighs and slipped inside.

  Delicious heat pooled where he touched, sensation after sensation quivered through her and she began to twist with an urgency that made Wade’s lean, darkstubbled face light with a grin.

  “No stopping now, princess,” he spoke against her lips, and she sipped at his and pulled him down closer and closer to her.

  “I’d have to shoot you if you stop,” she gasped desperately, and her heart thrummed as his grin widened, and then he lowered himself over her. His strong body flexed, shifted. Caitlin clung to him, her eyes glazed, her mouth damp as he rained kisses on her lips and her eyelids and began to slide the powerful length of his manhood inside her.

  Sweat filmed his brow as he used all of his willpower to hold himself still a moment, watching her flushed, beautiful face.

  “Caitlin.” His voice was a raw scrape as he gathered her close and twisted his hands in her hair. “Hold on, Caitlin. Hold on.”

  She clung to him, frightened and eager and wild with that hunger for more. Wonder swept through her as he filled her and her thighs parted even more to welcome him. The world was gone, there was only the two of them as he slanted his warm mouth against hers, kissing her tenderly and pushing himself deeper and deeper inside her.

  Then . . . pain . . . sharp, splintering pain. She cried out, but his kisses captured the pain and sweetened it, and then it dissolved into raw sweeping pleasure as Wade began to thrust inside her, slowly at first, then with ever-increasing surges. Caitlin cried out again, this time with a primitive joy that shuddered through her as she clutched at his muscled back, and then sensation built upon sensation and she was twisting and bucking beneath him, lost in the headlong rush of their bodies toward oblivion, in the brilliant, tumultuous explosion that shuddered through her very core and sent her soaring to heights she’d never dreamed existed.

  “Wade . . . Wade!” She cried his name, weeping as they rocked and shattered together over a dizzying peak. From a great distance she heard him saying her name, over and over, even as his body claimed hers beautifully and with all-encompassing possession and he branded her forever his own.

  Midnight and moonlight and sweet, soaring madness.

  These they found in the oaken bed as the moon glittered like a diamond in the perfect sky and the night stood still.

  At last, shaking and spent, they collapsed side by side, entangled in each other’s arms. After the whirlwind, the storm, quiet descended—and peace.

  Chapter 20

  Caitlin didn’t know how much later she awakened to find Wade holding her tucked against his bronzed naked body, kissing her with slow, gentle kisses. She kissed him back, her body stirring to quick warmth once again. Lovely, gentle kisses. Slow touches. Mmmmm. Smiling, she drew back for a moment to catch her breath and gazed lovingly into his eyes—only they weren’t Wade’s eyes.

  The eyes of the man holding her belonged to Dominic Trent.

  Her scream echoed around and around the tousled bed as she fought to wrench away, but Trent held her close and those icy colorless eyes glistened like moonfrost.

  “Did you think I wouldn’t find you, Caitlin? You and I are part of each other. This is meant to be.”

  “No!” she shrieked and yanked free. Suddenly she heard the pounding of hooves outside the window and ran toward the blowing draperies. There was Wade—galloping away from her, whipping his roan faster and faster, his broad figure becoming smaller and more indistinct as he rode into the blue-tinged distance.

  Wade! She called to him, shouting over and over for help, but he never turned or slowed.

  Wade!

  Terror bubbled up in her as she whirled back and saw Trent springing from the bed, coming toward her. She dashed toward the bureau to grab the bronze candlestick atop it. It was the same one she had hit him with in Philadelphia: tall, heavy, magnificently carved. But her desperate fingers closed on chill empty air.

  The candlestick was gone. Where?

  “This is meant to be,” Trent repeated, advancing with that same small, evil smile she remembered. “No one will help you, Caitlin. You’re all alone.”

  She shook her head wildly. And then she saw it—the shotgun propped against the foot of the bed. She darted past Trent and reached for it, but again, only that cool drift of air met her fingers. The shotgun was nowhere to be seen.

  She turned a slow despairing circle around the room. For a moment the faces of her mother and Gillis seemed to shimmer blurrily in the dark bronze mirror on the wall—then the mirror vanished, and so did Lydia’s and Gillis’s images.

  Where the wall had been there was only a swirling gray mist.

  They were gone, all of them . . . everything . . . gone . . . gone . . .

  No!!!

  “Caitlin!”

  No!!!

  “Shhh. Caitlin, it’s all right.” Wade’s voice, steady, calm. His hands on her, gentle, soothing.

  Her eyes flew open.

  “You had a dream, sweetheart. Pretty bad one, I’d say,” he told her softly.

  For a moment she could do nothing but stare into his dark, quiet face, into those diamond-blue eyes so full of concern and warmth.

  She was trembling all over, her entire body clammy as he pulled her closer and kissed the silk of her hair.

  “Want to tell me about it?”

  She shook her head.

  Wade stroked her hair. She heard his even breathing beside her and her own ragged breaths slowed. It was still dark beyond the window, and the night was silent. No wind. No mist. The curtains weren’t blowing. No one was riding away.

  “Then why don’t you tell me about Dominic Trent,” Wade said.

  “Wade—”

  “Tell me, Caitlin.” He swung up to face her as she
lay back upon the pillows, the twisted sheets loose across her body. “You said his name in your dream,” he said grimly. “It’s not the first time I’ve heard it. For your sake—and Becky’s—it’s time for you to fill me in on this son of a bitch who’s coming after you.”

  Shakily, Caitlin dragged a hand through her hair. “He’s a . . . former suitor. A would-be suitor,” she amended quickly in a low tone.

  “And?”

  She saw there was no denying the determination in his eyes.

  “We met at the opera and he began courting me. Or trying to court me,” she said with resignation. Her face was still very pale. “Dominic Trent is a powerful man in Philadelphia—one of the wealthiest men in the country. He was brought up with every imaginable luxury and apparently had never been refused anything he wanted. Until I refused his attentions.” She moistened her lips. “I was seeing Alec at the time I met Dominic—but that didn’t stop him from pressing his suit.” Suddenly chilled as she remembered how he had shown up everywhere she went, and always seemed to be watching her, she pulled the sheets up to her shoulders.

  “One day he came to my home—it was the day after Thanksgiving last year, just before Becky was to return to school. Mama and Gillis were away and I was walking in the garden.”

  She halted and bit her lip.

  “Go on,” Wade said even more grimly than before.

  “He—he accosted me. That’s the only word for it. He told me that he and I were meant to be together. That Alec was wrong for me, and he himself was the only man who could ever make me happy. He asked me to marry him and tried to kiss me and to . . .” She shuddered. “I told him no, I wouldn’t marry him—I asked him to leave. But he kept trying to kiss me and so I slapped him. And pushed him away. But when I tried to go back inside he wouldn’t let me go. He was hurting my arm and my cloak ripped in the struggle, but I couldn’t get away . . . so I started screaming and our groom, Perkins, came running and threw Trent into the shrubs and by then more of the servants came running and he—he left.”

  “But that wasn’t the last you saw of him,” Wade muttered, watching her drawn, taut face.

  “No.” Caitlin shook her head, and the thick pale locks of her hair fell across her cheeks. “After Lydia and Gillis died, after Alec broke our engagement, Trent followed me one day as I returned from Gillis’s lawyer’s office. It was late afternoon—almost dusk. I had stopped at the park near our home and sent the carriage ahead, planning to walk the rest of the way home and have some time to think over what I was going to do, how I was going to manage—but suddenly his carriage pulled up beside me and before I knew what was happening, he had dragged me inside.”

  Wade’s eyes went cold and flat again, Caitlin noticed, the way they had in Beaver Junction, when Becky had told him about Dominic Trent. She drew in her breath at the frightening expression on his face, but he quickly reached out, his hand closing over hers.

  “It’s all right, Caitlin,” he said very quietly. And in contrast to the frightening ice in his eyes, his hands were warm and reassuring.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  Caitlin swallowed as the ugly memories crept back. “He took me to his town house.” Somehow she managed to speak without quavering. “There was no one about on the street, and I screamed, but no one heard and then he pulled me inside the door and—and there were no servants inside—not another living soul. He told me that they all had been given the day off, that he had planned this so that we could be alone.”

  She suddenly closed her eyes. “He dragged me into the drawing room and locked the door. He offered me brandy and told me he had a proposition for me.” Her eyes flew open and her anguished gaze met Wade’s hard blue one.

  “He insisted that now I must be able to see that he and I were meant to be together. Everyone had deserted me, my mother and stepfather, Alec—everyone but him. He said I needed him. And that he needed me.” She shook her head slowly, horror in her voice. “But there was evil in his face, in the way he spoke. As if . . . nothing would—or could—deter him. I was more frightened than I’d ever been in my life,” she went on softly, her fingers clinging to Wade’s.

  “I ordered him to let me go, and then . . . I begged him to. But he only laughed and said I would learn to love him. He wasn’t offering me marriage this time, he wanted me to be his mistress. I would live with him in that house and be his mistress and he would provide for me—and for Becky—pay for her clothes, her tuition and room and board, whatever she needed . . . for as long as I remained with him.”

  Her voice began to shake. “I had heard . . . stories about him . . . rumors . . . that he had a dark side, especially where women were concerned. And as he circled me there in his drawing room, with the light burning low, I knew that they were all true. He slapped me when I tried to run to the door—he said that I deserved it for having struck him that day in the garden. He tried to tear off my clothes and I fought him. I grabbed a candlestick from the table—it was large and heavy—and I . . . I struck him over the head.” Her eyes were huge pools of shining green light in the darkened room. Wade read in them the depths of shock and horror.

  “He . . . fell. There was blood. I ran for the door and never looked back. I stopped only long enough to wire Mr. McCain that I was coming to Cloud Ranch and to tell Becky I was leaving. Then I took the last of my money and I came west.”

  “Caitlin,” Wade said in a hoarse tone. Emotion for this woman, and what she’d gone through, surged through him. It’s sympathy, he told himself, and concern, nothing more. Yet as he studied her shaken, pale face, a trace of panic thrummed through him at the intensity of his own feelings.

  She clutched at his hands. “I didn’t know if he would come after me or not,” she muttered. “I only knew I had to get my hands on enough money to take Becky away—for us to start over somewhere else, somewhere far from Dominic Trent.”

  “What about the authorities? Didn’t you think of pressing charges?”

  “It would have been useless. My word against his. And who was I? The impoverished daughter of a dead man steeped in scandal.” Caitlin gave a bitter laugh. “Dominic Trent had power, connections, friends. And I had left him lying in a pool of blood. I knew I wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  Wade knew she was right. He also knew that if Dominic Trent came within ten miles of Caitlin or Becky all the power, connections, and friends in the world wouldn’t save the man’s sorry hide.

  “You don’t have to worry about him anymore.” He wanted to gather her in his arms and kiss away every dark memory she possessed. He wanted to tell her he’d keep her safe forever.

  But there was no forever. Caitlin Summers would leave Cloud Ranch just as her mother had—as soon as her year was up.

  The knowledge sent pain twisting through him like barbed wire. Fear followed. Whoa, Barclay. You’re getting way too involved.

  He released her hands and leaned back, studying her in the waning glow of the moon. “I’ll take care of Dominic Trent if he’s stupid enough to show up,” he said coolly.

  “He isn’t your problem, Wade.” Caitlin resisted the urge to touch his stubble-laden face. “He’s mine. And I’ll handle it.” She took a deep breath, her heart breaking because in his eyes she no longer saw any warmth or softness—instead there was a wariness. He was closing her off, distancing himself from her—after she had poured out her heart. Something shattered deep inside her. Perhaps it was hope.

  She wrapped the sheet around her and started to wriggle her way off the bed, intending to return to her own room, but Wade snatched her and pushed her back against the pillows before she had set both feet on the floor.

  “Where do you think you’re going?”

  “To bed.”

  “You’re in bed.”

  “I meant my own bed.” She met his gaze quietly. “Don’t think that because we . . . we did . . . this together . . . that you owe me anything. That you need to try to protect me from Dominic Tr—”

  “Who said a
nything about trying?” he growled. “I damn well will protect you.”

  “Why?” Her lip trembled. “Because you made a stupid promise to Reese?”

  “Hell, Caitlin—I gave him my word.”

  “And I am releasing you from it,” Caitlin whispered. “From any obligation whatsoever.” She swung her legs over the side of the bed, still clutching the sheet, but Wade promptly seized them and swung them back. Before she had time to think, he straddled her.

  “Damn it, I am obligated,” he said as her eyes widened and she tried to sit up. Wade pushed her down and held her there with his body. “Not only for Reese—for me. After tonight, well, I guess we’re not enemies anymore, right? That makes us . . . friends. And I always stand by my friends.”

  Friends. They were friends.

  She swallowed and spoke with as much composure as she could manage through the pain tearing through her. “I don’t want any favors from you. And I don’t need them. If there’s one thing I’ve learned from everything that’s happened, it’s that I need to rely on myself. So when it comes to Dominic Trent—”

  “You are the stubbornnest woman alive!” he exploded.

  “Thank you, now kindly let me go!”

  Wade gritted his teeth. “Sure thing. Go.”

  He rolled off her and Caitlin bounded up, but in her haste as she struggled to keep the sheet around her and to scamper from the bed, she lost her balance and fell against his chest. Wade caught her and his arms came around her instantly.

  The next thing she knew she was flat on her back and he was leaning over her again, but this time his eyes held a glint of more than anger. A hot flutter began inside her as she read the warmth and desire there . . . and a trace of amusement. Suddenly she became aware that the sheet had slipped down, it was now twisted around her waist and her breasts were exposed, but for the strands of hair that drifted across them.