“Last I heard he was in Afghanistan. But that was a few years back.”
“John never heard from him,” Tessa said on a sigh. She reached up and grabbed one of the lowest branches of a small oak, and Denver took in the way that her upstretched arms pulled the cotton of her blouse taut over her breasts, showing all too clearly the pattern of lace on her bra and the dark peaks of her nipples.
Denver noticed everything about her. The way her hair shimmered gold in the fading light, the dusting of perspiration across her brow, the pensive pout of her lips and the provocative swell of her breasts. Beneath her tan, he noticed the small freckles swept across her nose and the flush to her cheeks.
Swallowing hard, he glanced away from her, concentrating instead on the cattle moving restlessly over the arid hills. “Why do you want this place?” he asked, his voice uncomfortably tight. The fragrance of her perfume caught in the breeze and swirled around him in a delicious cloud. “And don’t give me some baloney about how hard you and your family have worked here. There’s got to be more.”
“There is. A lot more.” She let go of the branch. The limb snapped up, leaves rustling. “I’ve never wanted to live anywhere else.”
“You haven’t been anywhere else,” he reminded her, hoping to chase away her girlish fantasies, fantasies that could trap him as easily as they had her.
“I’ve been to Seattle, Dallas and Phoenix.” Glancing over her shoulder, she added, “John thought I should see a little more of the world.”
Denver’s mouth thinned. “Did he?”
“Um-hmm. He liked showing me cities I hadn’t seen.”
“I’ll bet.”
“And of course, I went to college—not away to a campus, but I drove into Three Falls three times a week.”
“Three Falls isn’t much in the grand scheme of things.”
“And L.A. is?” she taunted.
“Yes.”
She arched one beautiful brow, saying more clearly than words that she didn’t believe him.
“If you had ever gone there, you would have seen that Southern California is more than cars, smog, beach and Disneyland.”
“I didn’t get a chance, did I?” she said.
He moved quickly. One hand wrapped around her wrist and he pulled, yanking her to him. Her breasts crushed against his chest, her eyes were level with the determined line of his mouth, and she could barely breathe. “I thought we were going to put all that behind us,” he growled.
She watched a muscle tighten in his jaw, smelled soap mingled with musk and wondered at the beads of sweat on his lip. “You’re right. I shouldn’t have said anything.” He was too close—the pressure of his arms around her too possessive. Forbidden flames licked through her blood as she shifted her gaze to those blue, blue eyes.
“Why do you insist on taunting me?”
“Me, taunt you?” Her mouth dropped open, and in that second he groaned.
“It’s more than that,” he rasped. “It’s as if you’re deliberately fighting me.”
“I only offered to buy the ranch. Nothing more.”
“And you haven’t meant to torture me?”
“What in the world are you talking about?” she asked, but her blood was already on fire, pulsing through her veins.
“This!” He covered her lips with his. They molded perfectly against hers, moving gently, the pressure bittersweet and familiar. Her knees buckled and she couldn’t think, didn’t let herself. His tongue was hard and wet and warm, pressing insistently against her lips.
She moaned softly, her mouth opening of its own accord. His tongue slid enticingly between her teeth to plunder the soft recess of her mouth. Her traitorous body wanted more. Seven years she’d waited for just this moment!
She drank in the smell of him, drowned in the power of his arms, felt the warm river of desire flow from deep within. She savored everything about him, tasting the salt on his lips, feeling as if she’d sampled a long-forbidden wine.
“Tessa,” he whispered, barely lifting his head, his eyes glazed. “Don’t do this to me.”
“I—I haven’t done anything.”
He groaned and kissed her again, his lips stealing down the length of her throat, past her collar, to the V where her blouse met over her breasts.
He still cares, she thought for a wondrous moment, ignoring the part of her that thought he might be using her. Her fingers laced through the coarse strands of his hair and she let her head loll back.
Nuzzling lower, he pressed wet kisses to the hollow between her breasts, and she arched closer to him, her braid nearly dragging to the ground, her