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“Dammit, Kincaid, I asked you a question!”
Tyler turned away abruptly, walked to the old-fashioned horse trough beside the bunkhouse and ducked his head into the cool water.
“And I answered it,” he said, looking at her.
He ran his fingers through his hair, spearing it back from his face, and blotted his face with his shirt. She tried not to notice the drops of water, caught like diamonds, that glittered against his tanned shoulders and clung to the dark mat of hair on his chest.
“You don’t belong here.”
His teeth showed in a quick smile. “No?”
“No. You’re no cowhand.”
He sighed, leaned back against the trough and folded his arms. “Look, lady, I didn’t storm the castle walls. You said Baron wasn’t here, you offered me a job and I took it. Why make it into anything more complicated than that?”
“Maybe,” Caitlin said stiffly, “I made a mistake.”
His eyes turned dark. “Maybe you did.” He took a step forward. “Truth is,” he said softly, “this hasn’t anything to do with you wanting to know why I came to Espada, does it?”
“Certainly it does. I’m in charge, when Jonas is away, and—”
“It’s me.” His voice was low. He moved forward again and she took a step back. “I make you uneasy.”
“Don’t be silly. I’m not afraid of you.”
Tyler smiled. “No?”
“No. Of course I’m not. I—”
“Maybe you’re afraid of yourself.”
She caught her breath as he reached out and lay his hand against her cheek. It was a simple gesture but an intimate one. She didn’t like it or the little knowing smile on his mouth—or the way her heart jumped, when she felt his roughened fingertips brush her skin.
“Don’t do that,” she said, and jerked her head away.
“I could feel your eyes on me, when I was with the mare.” He reached out again but she pulled back before he could touch her. “It made it tough to concentrate.”
“All right, that’s it. I should have done this yesterday. Kincaid, you’re fired.”
“For telling the truth?”
“Maybe you didn’t hear me, cowboy. You are out of here! Collect your time from Abel and—”
She cried out as he caught her wrist and dragged her behind the bunkhouse. She swung at him with her free hand but he caught that wrist, too, pushed her back against the limestone wall and pinned her hands to her sides. Her heart thudded into her throat. His eyes had gone from green to black. He looked hard, and dangerous—and incredibly, savagely exciting.
“I’ll scream,” she said. Her voice trembled and he laughed softly. He knew, she thought, he knew she was as excited as she was terrified, and in that moment she didn’t know which of them she hated more, Tyler Kincaid or herself.
“Does it frighten you, Caitlin?”
“Let go of me. Let go or so help me—”
“Wanting a man like me? Does it scare you, just a little?”
“Nothing scares me,” she said, forcing her eyes to stay locked to his, telling herself that he couldn’t hurt her, wouldn’t hurt her, not here. The bunkhouse blocked them from view, yes, but they weren’t alone, not really. There were men working only a few yards away. All she had to do was scream and this would all be nothing but a bad dream.
“Kincaid.” Her lips felt parched. She ran the tip of her tongue over them. His gaze followed the motion of her tongue and the realization sent a hot, lancing need shooting through her. “Kincaid, look. This is a mistake. You must realize that. You can’t get away with—with—”
His mouth twisted. “Is that what you think? That I’m going to rape you?” He laughed, though the sound of it was humorless. “Hell, lady, you think you’ve got me all figured out, don’t you?”
“Just let go of me, dammit!”
“Answer a question first.”
“You’re not in a position to bargain, Kin—”
Her breath caught as he shifted his weight, moved just enough against her so that she could feel him—and, heaven help her, feel the heat of her own response slipping through her blood.
“One question,” he said softly. He clasped both her wrists in one hand and cupped her face with the other, tilting it to him. “Did you like watching me?”
She looked at him, told her pulse to stop its crazed race. “I told you, I wasn’t—”
He bent his head, brushed his mouth against hers. “The truth,” he whispered.
“No,” she said, “no, I didn’t. I—”
She caught her breath as he touched his mouth to hers again, rubbing his lips against hers, then nipping at her bottom lip. Scream, she told herself, scream and bring the men running…
He sucked her lip into his mouth, worried it gently with his teeth.
A moan rose in her throat. She tried to stop it but Tyler heard it, felt it pass from her lips to his, and he groaned, swept his arms around her, and kissed her.
CHAPTER FOUR
NOTHING in her life had prepared Caitlin for Tyler’s kiss.
A first kiss between a man and a woman was supposed to be gentle, even cautious. How did his mouth feel against yours? How did your body fit in his arms?
That was how it was supposed to be.
Tyler’s kiss wasn’t like that.
His mouth was hot on hers, his arms hard as he gathered her to him and held her. She could feel herself being swept into a whirlpool of desire, and the sudden terror of giving herself up to it swept through her blood. Gasping, she tried to turn her face from Tyler’s but he clasped it in his hands, brought his mouth to hers again…
And she was lost.
Lost, and drowning in the taste of him. The heat. The intoxicating scent of being possessed by an aroused male.
She moaned again and Tyler heard the sound and knew it marked her surrender.
Her arms wound around his neck and she lifted herself to him, fit her softness against the hardness of him. Tyler groaned, ran his hands down her back, down her spine, cupped her bottom and lifted her into the V of his legs, wanting her to know what she had done to him, that she had turned him from a civilized man into a creature that knew nothing but desire. Her touch, her
taste, the feel of her in his arms, had reduced the world to this. He was blind to everything but the need thundering through his blood.
She moved against him, deliberately, provocatively. He felt the press of her breasts, the tilt of her hips. There was a roaring in his ears and he whispered her name, his voice low and rough, tugged her T-shirt out of her jeans, swept his hands up her back, along the warm silk of her skin.
She trembled in his arms.
“Tyler,” she whispered against his mouth and just that, the sound of his name on her lips, drove the last shreds of sanity from him.
“Yes,” he said, “yes, that’s right. It’s me, touching you. Me…”
His hand closed over her breast. She moaned, twisted against him to thrust the small, sweetly rounded flesh against his palm. His callused palm. His callused fingertips, fingertips that slid across the yearning, lace-covered nipple and turned her body to liquid honey.
“Please,” she said brokenly, “Tyler, please…”
He groaned, thrust his hands down her jeans, his fingers cupping her backside, urging her to her toes, bringing her closer. Her nerves, her muscles, her heart throbbed with desire. Yes, she thought, oh, oh, yes…
“You son of a bitch!”
She heard the roar, felt the blow as it landed on Tyler’s shoulder and reverberated through her body. Tyler grunted, Caitlin’s eyes flew open, and she stared over his shoulder at the enraged face of her stepfather and the riding whip he brandished in his right hand.
Tyler’s response was instantaneous. The tough kid he’d once been still lived inside him. He shoved Caitlin out of the way, spun around, lowered his head, raised his fists and struck his assailant. Jonas staggered back. He shook his head, snarled and came at Tyler again. But the red haze had cleared from Tyler’s eyes, long enough to let him see that his attacker was an old man with a shock of white hair and a face that looked as if it had been seamed by all the winds in Texas.
“Hell,” he said in disgust, and dropped his fists to his sides, “knock it off, Gramps. I can’t fight an old man.”
“Try me,” Jonas said, and struck him again. It was Tyler who staggered this time, stunned not just by the blow but by the violence of the old man’s attack.
