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But with her every soft swipe at his bare skin, his control wavered. Finally she picked up the liniment bottle Teddy had brought.
“Dr. Neal’s horse liniment!” she yelped. “This is what you used on me? Horse liniment?”
His mind warm and mellow after three shots of whiskey, Thad chuckled, then sucked in his breath at the pain it brought. “Worked, didn’t it?”
Leah laughed softly. “Oh, my, yes.”
“Well?”
“I am not sure this medicine will be effective on a man such as you.”
“What’s that mean? Leah, don’t josh me now. I’m not up to it.”
To his surprise, she planted a light kiss on his bruised shoulder. “I am not teasing you, Thad.” She brushed her lips across the base of his neck.
He groaned. “Oh, no?”
“No,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice. “I am seducing you.”
With a gasp he came straight up off the bed. “Like hell you are.”
“Lie down,” she said quietly. “And hush up.”
Chapter Eighteen
“Leah.” Thad caught at the small hand rubbing his shoulder. “Leah, stop.” Even with him belly-down on the bedsheet, his engorged member had ideas of its own. “I can’t…”
She went on rubbing another palmful of the sagey smelling liquid across his neck. “You cannot what?”
“Well…” he rumbled against the sheet. “It’s like this.”
“Yes?”
“I like being with you, Leah. I like it a lot. Maybe too much.”
Her hand stilled. “I like being with you, too, Thad. I do not believe there can be ‘too much.’”
He trapped her wrist and lifted it away from his rib cage. “When you touch me…oh, man alive, Leah, I want you. But dammit, right now I can hardly move.”
“Yes,” she breathed. “I know.”
Thad struggled to think clearly. “Liking you is not so much outside as it is…”
“Inside,” she finished, her voice calm. “Yes, I know that, too.”
She disengaged her wrist from his grasp and went on smoothing the aromatic lotion over his skin. Goodness, it felt wonderful. The liniment warmed his muscles and soothed away the pain. Hell’s bells, everything Leah did, or said, or cooked or sewed or read aloud in the evenings was wonderful. He was in love with her up to his eyeballs.
His manhood was alive and eager, but his body hurt like blazes. Must have taken more of a beating from Ike than he’d thought. At any rate, he couldn’t even think about…
Huh! He couldn’t not think about it. He hoped Leah understood.
Her hands reached his lower back. “Leah.” Her name came out of his mouth in a hoarse plea.
Her soothing fingers ceased their work on his bruised muscles and then she leaned over him and whispered something into his ear. It sounded like…Heavens, her voice was as ragged as his. And if that didn’t tie him up in knots, he was made of iron.
The word she had whispered was tomorrow.
“Tomorrow, what?”
“Tomorrow perhaps you will be able to move without hurting.”
His mouth went dry. Tomorrow he might be able to walk around with only a twinge or two; it was the day after tomorrow that scared him. Or rather, the night after. By that time he would be well and strong and half out of his mind with hunger for her.
There was no doubting it; he was in trouble. Focusing on his wheat field had worked up to a point, but it no longer stopped him from thinking about Leah. Wanting her. Sometimes, like right now, He felt he might go crazy.
Hell and damn, he was a coward. He kept edging away from her, protecting himself from another broken heart. At the same time a question nagged at him deep down inside, something he couldn’t even put into words.
Was he losing more than he was gaining? He twisted his head so he could not see her. He had to think about something other than Leah or his brain would explode.
“Every rancher in Polk County said wheat was risky,” he muttered. “Maybe they were right. With no rain since December, the wheat will be scorched to a crisp before I can harvest it.”
Leah said nothing, just sat quietly on the bed beside him and listened.
“You know I’ve gambled the ranch on that crop. If it fails, next year we might be broke. And hungry.”
“We will not be hungry, Thad.”
“Oh, God, Leah, what I’m trying to tell you is…” He waited until he regained control of his breathing. “I’ve got to keep my mind on the wheat right now. Not on you.”
Leah’s hands stilled. “Even at night?”
Thad made an odd sound in his throat. “Mostly at night. Can you understand that?”
