This Cowboy's Son

In the few seconds it took him to cross the muddy path between the truck and the veranda, the wind picked up, bending the trees beside the house horizontal and soaking him to the skin with driving rain.

The aged floorboards creaked beneath him with every step he took. He had to put effort into pushing the warped door while it groaned its resistance before finally opening.

The hairs on the back of his neck stood up. He hadn’t been in here since his parents had died. What was that? Ten years ago? The living room hadn’t changed one bit, except for the woman standing in front of the fireplace.

Jenny kept her back to him, ignoring him when he knew he’d made enough noise entering to rouse the dead.

Soft candlelight shone on her bare back, lit the threadbare blanket that was wrapped around her and hanging below the flare of her hips. When she bent to arrange her wet clothes in front of the fire, it slipped down to her smooth, round bottom, and anger forged a trail through him.

She had a lot of nerve ruining a perfectly good friendship by growing up. Matt didn’t care how unreasonable that sounded.

A gust of wind through the open doorway blew his hat from his head but he caught it in one hand.

The cold air raised goose bumps on Jenny’s skin. Even though the candlelight was too dim for him to be sure, he swore he could see them. But then, he’d noticed everything about her lately, like her curves and the new way she walked, swinging her hips too much.

Feminine curves and cowgirl strength. A stunning combination, never mind that she was feisty and fun, and made him feel bad to the bone.

His horsing-around-buddy was a better person than he could ever be, without even trying. She just was.

And now she was a grown woman.

Matt stepped into the room and slammed the door. The cabin seemed to get smaller, becoming too intimate. He rapped his hat against his thigh, spraying water across the wood floor, and threw it across the room to land on the kitchen table.

Jenny straightened, turned and looked at him with the eyes of a woman. Damn. No longer the kid he could toss into the pond when she got mouthy, she’d started to watch him with awareness, making his skin itch and his groin scream for attention.

Looking at her, he felt that old devil, yearning, swamp him. Yearning for what? For a warm body to sink into? Hell, any number of girls in town offered that regularly. For a comfort that would ease his soul? He could always wander into Reverend Wright’s church for that. For…love? No way. No how. For a family? Not in this lifetime.

That yearning had been trailing him for too long. Quit, already, he ordered. But it was no use with Jenny standing in front of him looking like a cowboy’s dream. Damn.

A flicker in Jenny’s eyes echoed his desire.

“Matt,” she said, gripping the gray blanket against her chest. It rose and fell with her shallow breaths.

He tried to say her name, but nothing came out. He stepped toward her. His boots hit the floor too loudly in the quiet room.

He finally admitted what he’d been denying to himself. That he’d been aware of her growing up not in the last couple of months, but in the last few years. She’d been calling to him and he’d done his best to hide from her.

Jenny stared at him with heat in her eyes, with smoky knowledge and a woman’s desire.

Lately, she’d been trying to reel him in like a calf at the end of a rope, but he was too smart for that. He’d resisted her. But here? Now? When she stood in front of him like a slice of heaven on earth?

“You play with fire, kid, and you’re going to get burned.” His throat hurt, sounded raw.

“I’m not a kid,” she said. “I’m twenty-two.”

She dropped the blanket and air hissed out from between his teeth. His gaze shot around the room, trying to look at anything but her, but in the end, he was only human.

Her thick braid fell over her shoulder to tease the nipple of one of her breasts. He groaned. Those breasts. Those mile-long legs.

He tried to be noble. “We’re friends, Jenny. This could ruin it.” He forced his lungs to expand and inhaled the scent of lilacs. God, she was beautiful. “I know about these things. You don’t.”

“I want to be more than friends, Matt.”

A sheen of sweat broke out on his upper lip.

Itchy and unsettled and angry, he yanked her toward him. Roughly. Her breasts hit his chest, warm through the damp denim shirt.

She wanted to be a woman? Fine, he’d treat her like one.

Matt settled a hand on her hip. He’d held a lot of women in his time, but Jenny’s skin was softer than any he’d ever touched.

She opened her mouth to speak, but he didn’t want to talk. He brushed one eyelid with a featherlight kiss then moved on to her cheek, and the corner of her mouth. She shivered.

“No regrets, Jenny,” he said, his voice husky. “This is sex. Nothing more.”

“I want you, Matt,” she told him. “What do you want?”

He felt the long-denied truth a split second before he said, “This,” and his mouth came down on hers, heavy and demanding.

A rough exhalation escaped him. He braced his arm across her back and crushed her to him, forcing his erection against her belly.

Jenny breathed one word. “Yes.”

He spread the blanket on the floor and brought her down with him. He lay on his back and pulled her to kneel above him so he could watch the firelight pour over her curves like molten caramel. While the windows rattled with the violence of the storm outside, the fire sent shadows leaping across the walls.

Jenny unbuttoned Matt’s shirt while he unzipped his pants.

She smiled. He reached up to taste that smile.

Wrapping his arms around her, he gave her every particle of himself, taking as much as she had to offer. When he entered her, he felt like laughing, crying, shouting from the mountaintops.

Jenny came apart in his arms then lay against him as trustingly as a newborn kitten.

Matt followed her into a nameless bliss, found peace, and whispered, “I love you.”

Get out of here.

Firelight limned the ancient furniture Matt knew too well.

Run.

He couldn’t breathe.

I love you? Where the hell had that come from? It was a goddamn lie, just like everything else in this hole he’d grown up in.

Jenny lay sleeping beside him. Maybe she hadn’t heard. She must have.

She craved a family. Damned if he’d hang around to fulfill her dreams. He couldn’t do it.