poncho moving beside a sorrel horse.
This just got better and better.
“You do know there’s a hurricane on its way, right?”
“Dad said it shouldn’t hit us until later tonight.”
So, of course, she had saddled a horse.
Damn crazy…
Stalking toward the row of stalls with as much purpose as his throbbing knee allowed, Nate saw a sweet little curve of denim-clad rump, and a long line of leg as Jolene slipped her foot into the stirrup and swung up onto the horse.
“I don’t think so.”
He tugged on her arm, palmed a handful of her hip and pulled her down.
“Hey! What—?”
“Not this time, lady.” With the baby to protect and the unreliability of his leg, he pulled her bottom straight into his chest and let her slide down the length of him.
“Put me—!”
The friction of wet denim and firm bodies was pure, sweet torture. Nate’s groin leaped to embarrassing life, demanding some sort of satisfaction for the paces she was putting him through.
But as soon as Jolene’s boots touched the ground, she twisted in his grasp.
“Oh, no, you don’t.” Nate backed her against the horse so she couldn’t squirm away. “I promised your father I’d keep you safe.”
Her cheeks flushed with a tantalizing heat. “I—”
“You’re pregnant. You need your rest.”
“I feel fine.”
She felt warm and soft and female and tempting wedged against his chest and thighs. “I intend to keep that promise with or without your help. You are not getting on that horse.”
Her eyes blazed blue as a clear, coastal dawn. But the moment she started to argue, his gaze dropped to her pink, pretty mouth. It was talking. Again. “I know what I’m doing. I grew up in Texas. I’ve ridden horses forever. You have no right to boss—”
Nate palmed the back of her neck, tipped her face up to his and kissed her, silencing the words intended to push them apart.
Startled, Jolene gasped, seeming to draw the breath right from his chest. That soft little sound primed him, sparked something wild and reckless deep inside him. He felt her hands at his shoulders, bracing herself, digging in, holding on when she should be pulling away.
The years fell away from his tortured old soul and his ears pounded with the flare of pent-up needs and desires.
Jolene was on her toes and Nate was holding her close.
Cold, wet clothes and hot, instant passion beaded the tips of her breasts against his aching chest. The fertile swell of her belly and the life growing inside thrust against his stomach, humbling him. Her luscious body roused, yet at the same time soothed every basic male instinct he possessed.
There was little finesse on either of their parts—noses bumped, feet tangled, water dripped from poncho and cap. But her open mouth was warm, her tongue a delicious rasp, her lips giving and demanding beneath his. The tension that had yin and yanged between them all day long seemed to gather itself and focus its heat into this one time-stopping kiss.
The storm outside melted away. There was no hurricane, no emergency, no lives waiting to be saved.
There was only the two of them.
In all his life, Nate had never shared a kiss like this. He felt sure he could live a dozen lifetimes and never know a kiss like this one. With this woman.
Joaquin Angel’s woman.
Whoa.
Nate jerked at the unsettling thought. Jolene tensed, pushed against his chest. Her horse shifted, knocking her into Nate. Knocking a chink in the raw need that consumed him, giving his much-touted common sense a chance to flood into his brain.
With a wrenching sigh, Nate lifted his mouth and released her, ending the kiss as abruptly as it had begun. He held his hands out to either side, signalling the end to that crazy, wild ride.
“That…shouldn’t have happened,” were the best words of apology he could summon at the moment.
He was still pinned by the drowsy passion in those deep blue eyes, still caught by the spell of those sassy lips, made rosy and swollen by the brand of his mouth. He was still drowning in the scents of home and heat that clung to her hair and radiated from her damp skin.
“You kissed me.” Jolene’s chest rose and fell with the same deep, uneven gasps that marked his own breathing.
Guilty as charged. “Yeah. I did. And, uh, you kissed me back.”
“Men don’t…” Her voice trailed off. She lowered her gaze to a spot near his chin.
Nate noted the sudden pallor in her cheeks. He frowned at the uncharacteristic confusion in her tone.