Cowboy Enchantment - By Pamela Browning Page 0,19

time had passed. He couldn’t believe he had enjoyed this basic lesson so much.

Horse and rider made one more complete and very sedate circle before stopping beside him. He smiled up at Erica. “You look comfortable on horseback,” he said.

“The lesson wasn’t very hard.” She reached forward and patted Melba on the neck.

“Here, let me help you down.” As she prepared to dismount, he started to give her a hand, then abruptly changed his mind. Instead, as Erica swung down from the saddle, he wrapped his hands around her waist. She slid down against him, her body brushing his, so that he felt her breasts moving down his chest, her flat abdomen brushing his belt buckle. Her breasts weren’t as small as he’d thought, nor was she as heavy. In fact, she felt featherlight in his arms. She felt as if she could float to earth without any help from him.

“Thank you,” she said, her voice high and breathy. He looked down at her then, and her face was only inches from his. Her lips were slightly parted, looking ripe as strawberries and moist. He was mesmerized by those lips and was even more enchanted to see the pink tip of her tongue appear and enticingly lick her lower lip.

He swallowed, hard. In that moment Melba, the stable, the riding ring disappeared, and all that was left was Erica and him and the sky, which was a wide delirious blue. He was peripherally aware of the cat and her kittens, and he thought the cat said, Kiss her!

Or maybe Mrs. Gray was merely hissing at the kitten who had pounced on her tail. Whatever, he thought that the advice to kiss Erica was excellent. Why wouldn’t he, with her staring up at him out of those wide eyes, with her hands on his upper arms where she could feel muscles made strong from riding, with her hair a golden aureole around her bewitching face?

He closed his eyes, opened them, half expecting Erica to disappear like the horse and the stable. She didn’t. She appeared as caught up in the spell of this as he was. Slowly he bent his head; slowly he angled it into position. As for Erica, he didn’t think she had breathed even once since she’d come down off the horse. Maybe he hadn’t, either. Maybe you didn’t need to breathe when you did this.

His lips opened slightly, and he dipped them closer to hers. He was startled to find out that she was breathing, after all, and her breath fell like petals on his cheeks. He drifted along with the petals, smelling honeysuckle, his favorite scent, inhaling it, along with the fragrance of her sun-washed skin. She yearned toward him, her eyes closed, the lashes casting exquisitely curved shadows beneath. His lips closed in, touching hers, and he knew then that he would crush her in his arms, would overpower her with his strength until she—

“Hank? Hank!”

Startled out of the mood, surprised by the interruption, his head jerked backward. Erica pulled away in that instant, too, putting space between them.

Paloma was waving from the door of a stable that had somehow reappeared. “Excuse me, Hank, but I really must leave Kaylie with you now. I have an appointment in town.”

Melba, also restored to being, stamped her feet, probably eager to get to the feed trough. Erica brushed a fly away with apparent annoyance, and Hank became aware of the whine of a jet high above them. Responsibility settled heavily over him like a mantle of lead, pushing him into the ground, letting him know that pleasures such as other men might enjoy were not to be his.

“I’ll be right there.” Hank turned back to Erica, but she had backed so far away that she was out of his reach.

“I’ll be here for the lesson tomorrow,” she said in a rush, and then she was gone, walking swiftly out of the ring toward the guest quarters.

He watched her go as he led Melba into the stable. Erica was gone, much like his fantasies, the ones that got him through all the lonely days and nights.

But unlike those fantasies, he knew that Erica was real.

More real than he was, probably. Because he wasn’t really a cowboy, but nobody knew that except his sister. And he wasn’t about to tell. At least not yet.

IT WAS A GOOD THING she hadn’t been required to ride Melba anywhere but around the ring, Erica reflected as she hurried back to her room,