Texas Proud and Circle of Gold (Long, Tall Texans #52) - Diana Palmer Page 0,113

jeans and nice boots. He looked just the way a working cowboy should when he was cleaned up, she thought, trying to imagine him a century earlier.

“Is the mechanic here?” he asked abruptly when he spotted Kasie in the swing.

“Yes, I sent him on down to the barn.”

He went down the steps gracefully and stalked to the barn. He was gone about five minutes and when he came out of the barn, so did the mechanic. They shook hands and the mechanic drove off.

“A fuse,” he murmured, shaking his head as he came up the steps and dropped into the swing at Kasie’s side. “A damned fuse, and the whole panel went down. Imagine that.”

“Sometimes it’s the little things that give the most trouble,” she murmured, shy with him.

He put an arm behind her and rocked the swing into motion. “I like the way you smell, Kasie,” he said lazily. “You always remind me of roses.”

“I’m allergic to perfume,” she confided. “The florals are the only ones I can wear without sneezing my head off.”

“Where are my babies?” he asked.

“Mrs. Charters is baking cookies with them in the kitchen,” she said, smiling. “They love to cook. So do I. We’ve all learned a lot from Mrs. Charters.”

He looked down at her in the darkness. One lean hand went to the braid at the back of her head, and he tugged on it gently. “You’re mysterious,” he murmured. “I don’t really know anything about you.”

“There’s not much to tell,” she told him. “I’m just ordinary.”

He shifted, and she felt his powerful thigh against her leg. Her body came alive with fleeting little stabs of pleasure. She could feel her breath catching in her throat as she breathed. He was too close.

She started to move, but it was too late. His arm curled her into his body, and the warm, hard pressure of his mouth pushed her head back against the swing while he fed hungrily on her lips.

Part of her wanted to resist, but a stronger part was completely powerless. She reached up and put her arms around his neck and opened her lips for him. She felt him stiffen, hesitate, catch his breath. Then his mouth became rough and demanding, and he dragged her across his legs, folding her close while he kissed her until her mouth was swollen and tender.

He nibbled her upper lip, fighting to breathe normally. “Don’t let me do this,” he warned.

“You’re bigger than I am,” she murmured breath-lessly.

“That’s no excuse at all.”

Her fingers trailed over his hard mouth and down to his chest where they rested. She stared at the wide curve of his mouth with a kind of wonder that a man like this, good-looking and charming and wealthy, would look twice at a chestnut mouse like Kasie. Perhaps he needed glasses.

He touched her oval face, tracing its soft lines in a warm, damp darkness that was suddenly like an exotic, faraway place. Kasie felt as if she’d come home. Impulsively, she let her head slide down his arm until it rested in the crook of his elbow. She watched his expression harden, heard his breathing change. His lean fingers moved down her chin and throat until they were at the top button of her shirtwaist dress. They hesitated there.

She lay looking up at him patiently, curiously, ablaze with unfamiliar longings and delight.

“Kasie,” he whispered, and his long fingers began to sensually move the top button out of its buttonhole. As it came free, he heard her soft gasp, felt the jerk of her body, and knew that this was new territory for her.

His hand started to slide gently into the opening he’d made. He watched Kasie, lying so sweetly in his embrace, giving him free license with her innocence, and he shivered with desire.

But even as he felt the soft warmth of the skin at her collarbone, laughing young voices came drifting out onto the porch as the front door opened.

Gil moved Kasie back into her own seat abruptly and stood up.

“Daddy’s home!” Bess cried, and she and Jenny ran to him, to be scooped up and kissed heartily.

“I’ll, uh, just go and get my pad so that you can dictate that letter you mentioned,” Kasie said as she got up, too.

“You will not,” Gil said, his voice still a little husky. “Go to bed, Kasie. It can wait. In the morning, you can tutor Pauline on the computer, so that she can take over inputting the cattle records. John won’t be in