The Texas Renegade Returns

“Alex, what are you doing here?”

“I met with Chance earlier. We rode.”

“I mean, what are you doing here?”

“I got lucky. I was pulling away after seeing Chance and my sister when I spotted you coming in here.”

“Oh.” She nibbled on her lip and looked away. No eye contact. He wondered if his candor broke through some of her defensive walls. “Did you follow me?”

They’d already wasted enough time, months, and he’d be damned if he let her slip through his fingers now because of his foolishness and her pride, so he told her the absolute truth. “I am not following you, if that’s what you’re asking.” He couldn’t blame her for wondering. Yesterday, he’d hijacked her from her office. Today was simply a blessed accident. “But as soon as I saw you, I followed you inside the stable.”

Her eyes lifted to his.

He brought his hand to her face and touched her cheek gently with his fingertips. Breath puffed from her chest in a whispered sigh as she closed her eyes and absorbed his warmth, telling him what he wanted, needed to know, with unspoken words. “You haven’t forgotten what it was like between us?”

Her head moved. “No.”

“We had heat, Cara.” He drew deep from the well of her sweet scent and brought his mouth to hers. His lips hovered over hers and he rasped, “We still do.”

She kept shaking her head, but her eyes betrayed her. She still cared, she still loved him. No longer fierce and protective, those orbs of blue welcomed him with timid acceptance. He had to prove to her he wouldn’t hurt her again. If she gave him another chance, he would show her pleasure and try his damnedest to make her happy.

“Alex.” He took her plea as invitation and not rejection.

He thumbed her chin up and brought his mouth down. A squeaky noise erupted from her mouth as soon as their lips met and Alex smiled then, unable to hide his satisfaction. She was everything to him and he wanted to be everything to her. Again.

Her mouth was exquisite and he wanted more...already, so much more. He’d been too long without her, and the evidence wasn’t too far south of his belt buckle.

He put his hands on her waist and drew her up against him. Her body fit him perfectly. She was snug against him as the kiss deepened. He nipped at her lower lip and she opened for him, her breaths as ragged and rapid as his own.

He swept through her luscious mouth and groaned as she met his demands. Licking her with his tongue, he tasted the sweetly heady combination of wholesome and sexy all rolled up into one. Cara had been forbidden fruit, the daughter of his rival, his best friend’s girl, yet he hadn’t been able to keep away from her. He couldn’t now. Her taste permeated his core, giving him an erection that strained fiercely, killing him in small measures. His juices flowing hot and liquid, he splayed his hands around her backside and with a quick, gentle jerk, her hips collided with his. “This is our heat, Cara.”

She answered with a low, aching moan rushing from her lips.

He let his hands roam over her jeans and cursed the damn sequined pockets barricading him from feeling more of her. He ached to touch bare skin, to feel her warmth and curve his hands over the twin swells of her cheeks. He broke contact with her mouth only long enough to take another ragged breath. “I remember you. What we had.”

“Alex.” She jerked her head back far enough to meet with his eyes. She gulped air, her eyes liquid clear and hungry. “We can’t...”

He blocked out her refusal and grabbed her hand. Tugging her along, away from the stalls, away from any daylight, he found an empty office at the end of the barn that was no longer in use. He pulled her inside, noting an old pine desk and dusty papers covering a metal file cabinet. The door locked and the plastic blinds were already lowered on the indoor window.

She glanced at the desk, her brows arched in silent thrill. He was way beyond that, thrill too shallow a word for what he felt for her, but he could not take her on that filthy desk. He thought too much of her. She deserved more. He settled against the wall, and pulled her to him. She landed flat against his chest, her curvy body flush against him. He groaned at the perfect fit, the way she filled in the hollow spaces both of his needy body and his vacant heart. He’d blown it with her. There was no sugarcoating the obvious. He would make her remember the couple they’d once been one little gasp, one smoldering kiss, one fantastic orgasm at a time.

He cupped the back of her neck and jerked her head forward. Her mouth was a breath away. “You have no idea...what you do to me.”

Cara started to make a quick retort—she was sharp with her tongue—but he was quicker. He crushed his mouth to hers, staking a claim that was long ago decided. She didn’t pull away, didn’t rebuke his bold move bringing her inside the abandoned office. She was torn, though, with indecision; he tasted it in her kiss, her slightly stiff body against his. He hoped to melt her, to make her see the truth about them.

Alex was not a patient man. But he’d wait for Cara as long as it would take. But not before he left his mark on her. Not before he gave her a memory they would never forget.

His senses pulsed as he deepened the kiss and murmured soft, loving words. He broke through her rigidness, nuzzling her throat, his nose tickled by silky locks of her hair. He touched her shoulders and smoothed his hands down her arms. Her body responded with little tremors that he felt under his fingers. “You’re so beautiful, Cara.”

“So are you.... That’s why this is so hard for me.”

“I’m sorry for all I have done to you, sweetheart.”

“Don’t...say any more,” she whispered. And in that whisper he knew she asked not for apologies that were hard to accept but for something more carnal. Something he’d planned to do for her anyway. “Let me make it up to you.”

Already his hands were on her waist, his fingers nimble on the button of her jeans. He unfastened it and took the zipper in his thumb and forefinger. She didn’t protest, didn’t jerk away, but the tremors escalated and there was a twinge of movement toward him, enough encouragement for him to continue. He held her hip steady with one hand and inched down the teeth of her zipper with the other. Her jeans separated over her belly, and she splayed her legs open. For him. Alex dipped his hand inside her heat, brushing his thumb and pinkie finger against her firm, smooth thighs. Lacy material covered his destination, and he moved it away with a single finger slide.