Wrangling the Redhead - By Sherryl Woods Page 0,31
on his belt, skimming nails over bare skin. He peeled off her blouse and bra in a single move that sent buttons flying and left the clothes in a tangled heap somewhere in the barn.
They were committed to the game now, no question about that. Her soft little moans were enough to heat a statue and bring it to life. Her caresses were brazen, catching him off guard and stealing his breath and any last lingering shred of sanity.
He slid down from his perch on the stall door, scooped her up and carried her inside to the bed of clean straw. He stripped off his shirt and laid it down, then slowly lowered her. She never hesitated at the makeshift bed, earning his respect and his undying gratitude. He wasn’t sure he could have made it all the way to his house without exploding with this neediness she stirred in him. Thank heaven for the condom tucked in his wallet. Hopefully it hadn’t dry-rotted from old age.
Lauren was already wriggling out of her jeans, no easy task since they got hung up on her boots. Wade refrained from chuckling at the ungraceful effort.
“Hey,” he said, drawing her attention. “What say we slow this down?”
“No,” she said tersely, tugging impatiently at a boot.
Something in her voice set off an alarm. The urgency of desire was one thing. Panic was quite another.
“Lauren, what’s the hurry?”
She did hesitate then. The confusion in her eyes came close to breaking his heart, to say nothing of its effect on his libido.
“You afraid of changing your mind?” he asked.
She closed her eyes and went limp, then sighed and looked straight into his eyes. “Maybe.”
“Then we don’t do this,” he said, managing a calm note despite the protest raging through his blood. “It’s as simple as that.”
“But I want you,” she insisted.
“I know. That’s plain enough,” he said, caressing her cheek. “Just not as much as I want you. I can wait.”
She moaned and fell back against the straw. “I’m going to be up all night because you’re being so damn noble,” she muttered.
He grinned at the evident frustration in her voice. “Join the club. How about we do dinner instead? Maybe a nice bottle of wine or a couple of beers will settle us both down.”
Her gaze narrowed. “Who’s cooking?”
“I will.”
“You cook?”
“I can, if you’re not too particular about what you eat. How does a western omelette sound?”
“Heavenly,” she said at once.
He lifted himself up and went in search of her blouse and bra before he could act on the wicked ideas still raging through him. “Sorry about the blouse,” he said when he handed it to her. “I’ll buy you a replacement.”
“You will,” she agreed, then grinned. “Something with snaps.”
Wade laughed. “Good idea.” He held out a hand and helped her up. “Now scoot, before these noble intentions of mine lose out to my hormones.”
“Your place in a half hour?” she asked.
“Perfect,” he agreed.
Okay, maybe not so perfect, he thought as he headed home. How the hell was he supposed to keep his hands to himself all evening long, now that he knew exactly how Lauren felt beneath his touch?
Chapter Seven
Lauren spent ten of the precious thirty minutes Wade had granted her down in the barn trying to make herself presentable in case she ran into Grady or Karen up at the house. She didn’t want either of them to take one look at her and conclude that she and Wade had been rolling around in the hay. Which, of course, they had been. Unfortunately—from her perspective—they had stopped short of making love.
Okay, maybe it wasn’t unfortunate. Wade had seen what she hadn’t been willing to admit. She wasn’t ready to make the kind of commitment that would go along with that kind of intimacy. More important, she wasn’t sure Wade was ready for any kind of commitment at all.
If she were a different person, maybe it wouldn’t have mattered. They could have spent a few wonderfully wicked hours in each other’s arms, then gone right along as if nothing momentous had happened. Sadly, though, Lauren had learned that she was really lousy at casual sex. Come to think of it, she wasn’t much better with committed relationships, either, she reminded herself. She had two divorces to attest to that.
Of course, maybe the reason she’d jumped into those marriages had been the belief that commitment and sex went hand in hand, an anti-free-love morality, as it were. Maybe this time she should try to separate