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She slid her hands up his chest and wrapped them around the back of his neck. Fully pressing her mouth against his, she kissed him with every ounce of passion she'd been holding back since the night in the barn. The kiss awakened something inside her.
He took over the kiss with a fervent heat that had her melting in his arms. They bumped into the table and knocked a glass over. Fingers pulled on clothing. The kiss seemed to go on forever. She lost all reasoning and the ability to think. If he tried to take her to bed, she knew she would go despite the warning bells going off in her head.
He shoved her away instead, jaw tight.
“What's wrong?” she asked. “You told me to kiss you, and I did. Why are you mad?”
Scowling, he said, “I need to make a phone call.”
Then he was gone, on his way back to the den without finishing his dinner. She slowly shook her head in confusion. If she lived to be a hundred, she'd never understand that man. Her fingers went to her tingling lips, and she wondered if he wanted to do it again.
She did.
Chapter Seventeen
Jared woke in the middle of the night to a freezing house. He had been dreaming about her, about Beth, about his beautiful, lying wife. Soft and pliant in his arms, she had let him do whatever he wanted. Of course, it was just a dream. They were about to make love when something awakened him. One glance at the clock next to his bed revealed the problem. The electric was out.
He got dressed as quickly as possible, jeans and shirts three layers deep. Sitting on the bed, he tugged on his boots. It wasn't easy getting them on over two sets of socks. He jumped up and went straight to Beth's room to let her know the power was out.
After knocking, he pushed the door open and called her name. The bed was empty. A flash of light drew his gaze to the balcony doors. In the distance, he saw the unmistakable beam of a flashlight heading for the stallion barns. Beth was outside in a winter storm in the dead of night. Had she lost her mind?
He raced down the stairs, stopping just long enough to grab his own flashlight and coat before dashing outside. The strong wind caught him by surprise and almost knocked him over. Even with the light, he couldn't see more than an inch in front of his face. He knew they always tied a rope from the house to the barns whenever bad weather was coming. It was easy to find. He grabbed onto the rope as the wind whipped around him, forcefully tugging at his clothing.
Millions of tiny ice pellets hit his face, stinging like a swarm of bees. The Arctic air threatened to freeze his exposed flesh, but he wasn't going back to the house without Beth.
The walk to the first barn seemed to take forever. His feet disappeared beneath the snow. He worried about Beth falling and hurting herself. He wouldn't be able to find her. The thought made his heart race. If anything bad happened to her...
“Beth!” he shouted.
The howling wind swallowed her name.
Finally, he made it into the first stallion barn; Beth wasn't there. A few of the horses watched him race to the door on the other end. It connected them to the next building. He hurried through the second barn while calling her name. She wasn't there either. He pushed the outside door open, fighting the storm. The violent wind tried to slam the door in his face. He took several steps into the barn and saw the door on the other end was wide open.
He raced across the barn.
She was just outside the door, fighting the storm while working on the generators. Wind whipped at her hair and tugged at her clothes. She pulled a switch on a panel connected to the exterior wall. A red light flickered. She must have heard him behind her because she spun around, eyes wide. Her entire body quaked from the cold. She looked half-frozen already, and they still had to make it back to the house.
“What's going on?” he demanded. “I thought we had everything ready out here for the blizzard.”
“You obviously weren't awake when the power went out,” she said with chattering teeth. “The generator kicked in for a while, but then the house lights went off. I had to make sure the generators for the barns are still working.”
“You should have got me out of bed.”
She frowned. “I'm not used to having someone else in the house that I can depend on.”
He blew hot breath into his cupped hands and bounced on the balls of his feet. “Have you found the problem?”
“There was a surge in the house generator, I think. We need to reset it.”
“How long is that going to take?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve never done it before. I’m not exactly sure how to do it.”
“The house can go without electricity. I’m sure we can keep each other warm.”
“I've gone without power before. Sometimes we have to send all the fuel to the other generators to keep them going.”
He shook his head, jaw tight. “Are you telling me that you stay in the house alone without any electricity just to keep the freezers cold?”
