Paper Husband

“No,” she said finally, grimacing. “Well, I’m hopeless, I guess. I don’t date, I haven’t got time to read racy novels …!”

He was watching her very closely. “Some lessons carry a high price. But it’s safe enough with me. Here.”

He took her own hand and, shockingly, eased the fabric away from her breast and put her fingers on the hard tip. He watched her body as he did it, which made the experience even more sensual.

“Desire causes it,” he explained quietly. “A man’s body swells where he’s most a man. A woman’s breasts swell and the tips go hard. It’s a reaction that comes from excitement, and nothing at all to be ashamed of.”

She was barely breathing. She knew her face was flushed, and her heart was beating her to death. She was sitting in the middle of an open field, letting Hank look at her breasts and explain desire to her. The whole thing had a fantasy quality that made her wide-eyed.

He knew it. He smiled. “You’re pretty,” he said gently, removing her hand and tugging the edges of the blouse back together. “Don’t make heavy weather of it. It’s natural, isn’t it, with us? It always has been. That’s why I can talk to you so easily about the most intimate things.” He frowned slightly. “I wanted my wife all the time, did I ever tell you? She taunted me and made me crazy to have her, so that I’d do anything for it. But I wasn’t rich enough to suit her. My best friend hit it big in real estate and she was all over him like a duck on a bug. I don’t think she ever looked back when she left me, but I didn’t sleep for weeks, wanting her. I still want her, from time to time.” He sighed roughly. “And now she’s coming back, she and Bob. They’re going to be in town for a few weeks while he gets rid of all his investments. He’s retiring, and he wants to sell me his racehorse. Hell of a gall, isn’t it?” he muttered coldly.

She felt his pain and didn’t dare let him see how much it disturbed her. “Thanks for untangling me,” she said breathlessly, to divert him, and started to get up.

His hand stayed her. He looked studious and calculating. “Don’t. I want to try something.”

His fingers went to the snaps of his chambray shirt and he unfastened it all down his chest, pulling the shirttail out of his jeans as he went. His chest was broad and tanned, thick with hair, powerfully muscled.

“What are you doing?” she whispered, startled.

“I told you. I want to try something.” He drew her up on her knees, and unfastened the remaining buttons on her shirt. He looked searchingly at her expression. She was too shocked to protest, and then he pulled her close, letting her feel for the first time in her life the impact of a man’s seminudity against her own.

Her sharp breath was audible. There was wonder in her eyes as she lifted them to his in fascinated curiosity.

His hands went to her rib cage and he drew her lazily, sensuously, against that rough cushion of his chest. It tickled her breasts and made the tips go harder. She grasped his shoulders, biting in with her nails involuntarily as all her dreams seemed to come true at once. His eyes were blazing with dark fires. They fell to her mouth and he bent toward her.

She felt the hard warmth of his lips slowly burrow into hers, parting them, teasing them. She held her breath, tasting him like some rare wine. Dimly she felt his hand go between them and tenderly caress one swollen breast. She gasped again, and his head lifted so that he could see her eyes.

His thumb rippled over the hard tip and she shivered all over, helpless in his embrace.

“Yes,” he whispered absently, “that’s exactly what I thought. I could lay you down right here, right now.”

She barely heard him. Her heart was shaking her. His fingers touched her, teased her body. It arched toward him, desperate not to lose the contact.

His eyes were all over her face; her bare breasts pressed so close against him. He felt the touch all the way to his soul. “I want you,” he said quietly.

She sobbed, because it shouldn’t have been like this. Her own body betrayed her, giving away all its hard-kept secrets.

But there was a hesitation in him. His hand stilled on her breast, his mouth hovered over hers as his dark eyes probed, watched.

“You’re still a virgin, aren’t you?” he asked roughly.

She swallowed, her lips swollen from the touch of his.

He shook her gently. “Tell me!”

She bit her lower lip and looked at his throat. She could see the pulse hammering there. “You knew that already.” She ground out the words.

He didn’t seem to breathe for a minute, then there was a slow, ragged exhaling of breath. He wrapped her up in his arms and sat holding her close, rocking her, his face buried in her hot throat, against her quick pulse.

“Yes. I just wanted to be sure,” he said after a minute. He released her inch by inch and smiled ruefully as he fastened her blouse again.

She let him, dazed. Her eyes clung to his as if they were looking for sanity.

Her mouth was swollen. Her eyes were as round as dark blue saucers in a face livid with color. In that moment she was more beautiful than he’d ever known her to be.

“No harm done,” he said gently. “We’ve learned a little more about each other than we knew before. It won’t change anything. We’re still friends.”

He made it sound like a question. “Of … of course,” she stammered.

He stood up, refastening his own shirt and tucking it back in as he looked at her with a new expression. Possession. Yes, that was it. He looked as if she belonged to him now. She didn’t understand the look or her own reaction to it.

She scrambled to her feet, moving them to see if anything hurt.

“The wire didn’t break the skin, fortunately for you,” he said. “Those jeans are heavy, tough fabric. But you need a tetanus shot, just the same. If you haven’t had one, I’ll drive you into town to get one.”

“I had one last year,” she said, avoiding his eyes as she started toward Bess, who was eyeing the stallion a little too curiously. “You’d better get Cappy before he gets any ideas.”

He caught Cappy’s bridle and had to soothe him. “You’d better get her out of here while you can,” he advised. “I didn’t think you’d be riding her today or I wouldn’t have brought Cappy. You usually ride Toast.”

She didn’t want to tell him that Toast had been sold to help settle one of her father’s outstanding debts.

He watched her swing into the saddle and he did likewise, keeping the stallion a good distance away. The urge to mate wasn’t only a human thing.

“I’ll be over to see you later,” he called to her. “We’ve got some things to talk over.”

“Like what?” she asked.

But Hank didn’t answer. Cappy was fidgeting wildly as he tried to control the stallion. “Not now. Get her home!”

She turned the mare and galloped toward the ranch, forgetting the fence in her headlong rush. She’d have to come back later. At least she could get out of the sun and get something cold to drink now.

Once she was back in the small house, she looked at herself in the bathroom mirror after a shower and couldn’t believe she was the same woman who’d gone out into the pasture only this morning. She looked so different. There was something new in her eyes, something more feminine, mysterious and secretive. She felt all over again the slow, searching touch of Hayden Grant’s hard fingers and blushed.

There had been a rare and beautiful magic between them out there in the field. She loved him so much. There had been no other man’s touch on her body, never another man in her heart. But how was he going to react when he knew the contents of her father’s will? He didn’t want to marry again. He’d said so often enough. And although he and Dana had been friends for a long time, he’d drawn back at once when he made her admit her innocence. He’d wanted an affair, obviously, but discovered that it would be impossible to justify that with his conscience. He couldn’t seduce an innocent woman.

She went into her bedroom and put on blue slacks and a knit shirt, leaving her freshly washed and dried hair loose around her shoulders. He’d said they would talk later. Did that mean he’d heard gossip about the will? Was he going to ask her to challenge it?

She had no idea what to expect. Perhaps it was just as well. She’d have less time to worry.

She walked around the living room, her eyes on the sad, shabby furniture that she and her father had bought so many years ago. There hadn’t been any money in the past year for reupholstery or new frills. They’d put everything into those few head of beef cattle and the herd sire. But the cattle market was way down and if a bad winter came, there would be no way to afford to buy feed. She had to plant plenty of hay and corn to get through the winter. But their best hand had quit on her father’s death, and now all she had were two part-time helpers, whom she could barely afford to pay. A blind woman could see that she wouldn’t be able to keep going now.

She could have wept for her lost chances. She had no education past high school, no real way to make a living. All she knew was how to pull calves and mix feed and sell off stock. She went to the auctions and knew how to bid, how to buy, how to pick cattle for conformation. She knew much less about horses, but that hardly mattered. She only had one left and the part-time man kept Bess—and Toast, until he was sold—groomed and fed and watered. She did at least know how to saddle the beast. But to Dana, a horse was a tool to use with cattle. Hayden cringed when she said that. He had purebred palominos and loved every one of them. He couldn’t understand anyone not loving horses as much as he did.

Oddly, though, it was their only real point of contention. In most other ways, they agreed, even on politics and religion. And they liked the same television programs. She smiled, remembering how many times they’d shared similar enthusiasms for weekly series, especially science fiction ones.

Hank had been kind to her father, too, and so patient when a man who’d given his life to being a country gentleman was suddenly faced with learning to be a rancher at the age of fifty-five. It made Dana sad to think how much longer her father’s life might have been if he’d taken up a less exhaustive profession. He’d had a good brain, and so much still to give.

She fixed a light lunch and a pot of coffee and thought about going back out to see about that downed fence. But another disaster would just be too much. She was disaster-prone when Hank was anywhere near her, and she seemed to be rapidly getting that way even when he wasn’t. He’d rescued her from mad bulls, trapped feet in corral fences, once from a rattlesnake and twice from falling bales of hay. He must be wondering if there wasn’t some way he could be rid of her once and for all.