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“So,” he said, with deliberate lightness, “what were you going to tell me about your stepbrothers? Don’t tell me they were the ones who sat you down and told you about the birds and the bees.”
Caitlin laughed. “Are you kidding? Nobody told me about birds and bees, Tyler. I learned about stallions and mares the day I wandered into our stables when one of our studs—”
Our stables. Our studs. She wasn’t a Baron, the old man wouldn’t let her forget that she wasn’t, but that was the way she thought of herself, as a Baron, as someone who loved Espada almost as much as he despised it.
“—Slade, I think it was, turned around and saw me. I thought he was going to pass out. My stepbrothers, tell me about sex? They taught me to rope horses and herd cows, but sex was for other girls, not for their little sister.” She grinned. “They waited up for me, after my first date.”
“They did, huh?”
“They loved me,” she said simply, “and I loved them. Of course…” She laughed softly and traced the outline of Tyler’s lips with the tip of her finger. “Of course, that didn’t keep me from trying to beat them up. Well, one at a time, naturally.”
“Naturally.” Tyler grinned and rolled her beneath him. “I’m impressed.”
“See, they had this club…”
“Mmm.” He bent his head, nuzzled her hair from her throat. “Los Lobos.”
“Yes.” She bit back a moan as he brushed his mouth against the skin at the delicate juncture of neck and shoulder. “That’s right. I told you about—about—”
Tyler caught her hands and held them. “Go on,” he said softly, as he kissed the hollow of her throat, the slope of her breast. She could feel his lips curve into a smile against her flesh. “Don’t let me distract you.”
Caitlin closed her eyes. “It was—it was just the three of them,” she said, in a breathless flurry of softly whispered words. “And eventually they made me a member, but when they got older, they sometimes met without me in the hayloft…oh. Oh, Tyler…”
“They met in the hayloft,” he said, as he cupped her breasts and rubbed his thumbs across the yearning tips. “Without you.”
“Without me. I guess they talked about—” Her voice broke. He was kissing her belly, her thighs, biting gently at the soft, tender flesh. “About girls,” she said, in a choked whisper. “And—and one time, I heard them talking about virgins and agreeing that—that…” Caitlin’s hips arched from the bed. “I can’t think when—when…” She cried out and he moved up her body and kissed her mouth, drinking in her cries, glorying in her surrender.
“They were boys, sweetheart,” he whispered, slipping his hands under her bottom. “And maybe they knew that taking a girl’s virginity is a hell of a responsibility.”
“Yes.” She made a soft little sound as he parted her thighs. “That’s why I thought you might not be pleased when you realized—when you realized—”
He entered her slowly this time, holding back, sliding into her easily, spinning out the ecstasy of the moment, watching her eyes fill with his image as her body filled with his heat, watching as the pleasure caught her up in a surging wave of desire.
“You gave me a gift.” He moved, then moved again. She rose to him, sobbed out his name as she put her arms around him, as she closed around him like a satin sheath. “An incredible gift. Cait,” he said thickly, “Cait…”
Cait, my love, he thought.
And then he stopped thinking and spilled himself deep inside her again.
* * *
When the first light of the new day touched the hills, Caitlin sat up and looked out the window.
“Look,” she said. “Tyler, what a glorious sight.”
Tyler leaned on his elbow and propped his head on his hand. “Glorious,” he agreed lazily, and stroked his fingers lightly over her breasts. Despite the long night they’d shared, his caress brought a telling flush of desire to her face.
The sight, the knowledge that just his touch could arouse her, filled him with possessive pleasure.
“I’m talking about the sunrise,” she said, with a little laugh.
“Mmm.” Tyler ran his hand up Caitlin’s throat, gently cupped her face and brought her mouth to his for a kiss. “Want to go outside and watch it?”
“Oh, yes. Just give me a minute to get dr…Tyler?” She squealed as he rose from the bed and lifted her, and the blanket she clutched, into his arms. “Tyler,” she said, as he strode toward the patio doors, “we can’t…”
Her protests were useless. Tyler opened the sliding doors, stepped out into the awakening morning, wrapped them both within the king-size blanket and sat down in one of the patio chairs with her in his lap.
“We can do anything we want,” he said smugly, “because we’re the only two people on the planet.”
Caitlin’s smile faded. If only it were true. If only she and Tyler were alone…but they weren’t. Jonas stood between them like an omnipresent apparition. What venom there’d been in his voice, when he’d spoken Tyler’s name last night.
“He’s up to no good, missy. You’ll see.”
“You’re wrong,” she’d said, and Jonas had looked at her and smiled slyly, the way he always did just before he raked in the chips.
She shivered.
“Sweetheart?” Tyler’s arms tightened around her. “Are you cold? Shall we go inside?”
“No. Oh, no. I just—I just felt a chill for a second, that’s all.”
He drew her closer and gently urged her head onto his shoulder. Her body was soft and warm; her hair was a tangled skein of silk against his cheek. She smelled sweetly mysterious, her perfume a subtle blending of memories of the passion-filled night and the promise of the new day, and he wasn’t sure which he wanted more, to just go on sitting with her in his arms, holding her close and inhaling her fragrance, or to spread the blanket in the grass and make love to her again.
“Comfortable?” he whispered, pressing a kiss to her temple.
Caitlin sighed. “Mmm.”
“You’re sure you’re warm enough?”
“Mmm.”
Tyler chuckled, leaned back in the chair and rested his chin on the top of her head.
“I like a woman who’s easy to please,” he said softly.
She sighed, turned her face toward him and kissed his throat. “Jonas wouldn’t agree,” she said, before she could stop herself.
“That old bastard.” His voice hardened, but she knew, from the way his arms tightened around her, that the sudden edge she heard had nothing to do with her. “How in hell do you put up with him?”
“He’s a difficult man, I agree. But—”
“Oh, hell.” Tyler caught her chin in his hand, lifted her face to his and kissed her. “The last thing I want to do is argue over Jonas Baron.” He smiled, kissed her again, lingering over the sweetness of her mouth. “Tell me about Caitlin McCord.”
Caitlin smiled back. “You want the one-minute story, or the two?”
“I want to know everything about her.” He stroked a fingertip along her lips. “What kind of little girl was she?”
“A tomboy,” she said instantly. “A skinny kid with knobby knees and sharp elbows.” She laughed softly. “That’s what Gage always said, anyway.”
“Gage.” Tyler forced himself to smile. “One of the Barons.”
“The youngest, yes. You’d like him.”
“I doubt it.” Tyler’s smile glittered. “Not if he’s anything like his old man.”
“Oh, he isn’t. None of my stepbrothers are anything like their father.”
“Well, that takes the whole lot of them up a notch in my estimation, sight unseen.”
“They’ve all made their own ways in the world.”
Tyler’s brows lifted. “Baron didn’t set them up in whatever it is they do?”
Caitlin laughed. “Set them up? No way. They defied him, Tyler. Each and every one of them.” Sighing, she snuggled closer. “It’s funny, but you remind me of them in lot
s of ways.”
“What ways?” Tyler said, and told himself it really didn’t matter. Even if he shared the blood of the Baron brothers, he wasn’t one of them. “What ways?” he asked again, and cursed himself for wanting to hear the answer.
“Well, Gage built his own empire, from the ground up.” Caitlin lifted Tyler’s hand, brought it to her lips. “I get the feeling you did, too.”
He shrugged. “Working up a sweat doesn’t mean much.” He paused, cleared his throat. “What about the other two? What are they like?”
“Travis—he’s the eldest—Travis is like you, too.” She turned his hand over, kissed the callused palm. “He can go from being warm and charming to tough as steel in the blink of an eye. And Slade…” Caitlin smiled. “Let’s just say that I’d love to see you and Slade play poker sometime. I don’t know which of you would do a better job of calling the other’s bluff.”
Travis nodded. “You, ah, you’re fond of your stepbrothers,” he said, after a moment.
“I adore them all.” She sighed. “And I know you don’t like hearing it, but I love Jonas, too.” She felt Tyler stiffen and she turned and put her arms around his neck. “My mother married him when I was ten. Two years later, she ran off to New York with an actor she met at a little theater she’d conned Jonas into backing.”
“And left you behind?” Tyler’s mouth thinned. “Was the woman crazy?”
“Leaving me was the best thing she could have done, Tyler,” Caitlin said, with a little smile. “By the time she married Jonas, I’d forgotten the names of half the men she’d lived with. Jonas kept me, even after he divorced her. He gave me a home. Stability. Love. Well, his kind of love, anyway.”
“Love,” Tyler said, and grimaced. “I’ve heard him talk to you, Cait. Does he ever do anything but bark?”
“That’s just the way he is. It’s not personal.”
Tyler gave a bitter laugh. “Everything that SOB does is personal. I’ll bet he thinks that sun rises just for his benefit.”
“You see?” Caitlin smiled and brushed her mouth over his. “That’s just what my brothers would say.”
