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“I’m a city girl.” She drank from the beer, then drew her legs up and wrapped her arms over her bare knees. Her shorts barely covered her butt, but Zach tried to keep his eyes and mind on anything but how damnably sensual she was. “Grew up in Ottawa.”
He didn’t reply, couldn’t.
They sat in silence for what seemed forever. Zach’s heart was drumming so loudly, he wondered if she heard it, and though he pretended disinterested insolence, he suspected she saw right through him.
“I didn’t want to come here,” she admitted. “I don’t like being this far away if there’s any news about London…” Her throat caught on her daughter’s name, but she didn’t break down. Instead she sighed and ran her fingers through the thick black curls that framed her perfect face. “You don’t like me much, do you, Zach?” she asked suddenly.
“You’re…my stepmother.”
“As in wicked stepmother?”
He lifted a shoulder and took the last gulp of his beer. His fingers were still around the empty can when she turned her eyes up to him and they sparked with an inner light. Zach could barely breathe as she, staring at him boldly, placed her hands on his shoulders and brushed her lips across his.
“Jesus, Katherine—” he breathed, his heart knocking crazily. “Don’t!”
“Shh.” She placed those supple lips against his again, just for a second—a second he was certain would change the course of his life forever. Her mouth was teasing and warm, filled with promise.
Zach groaned low in his throat. “Don’t do this, Kat.”
“You want it, too,” she murmured in a sigh as soft as the summer night.
He told himself that he couldn’t kiss her or touch her or even think about her, and yet he was too weak to tear away from her embrace. Her lips fastened over his and her breasts, beneath the fragile barrier of her T-shirt, brushed across his bare chest.
A thousand reasons to stop screamed through his head but when her tongue skimmed his lips, then pressed urgently, demanding entrance, he gave up and he kissed her back, closing his mind to the warnings.
Her tongue was wet and slick and wonderful. It touched the roof his mouth, flicked against his lips and teeth, and promised untold delights.
Heat swirled through his blood and his cock was so hard it strained against the zipper of his cutoffs. Don’t do this! Don’t! an inner voice cried, but instead of protesting, he reached up and his fingers wound in her thick hair. She slid down him and kissed his naked chest, her tongue licking its way against his skin.
A shudder that felt like fire ripped though him. He dropped his beer and the empty can rolled noisily down the roof. His body convulsed and hot desire pumped through him. Grabbing her with strength born of desperation, he kissed her hard on the lips and all he could think about was kissing her and touching her and riding her all night.
She’s your father’s wife, Danvers! his mind yelled, and for once he listened to it. He found the strength to push her away. “This isn’t gonna work,” he said, breathing hard, wishing he could call back the words. He was so hard he was sure he would explode. His fingers clamped around her shoulders, keeping her at arm’s length.
Katherine chuckled deep in her throat and the sound seemed to echo off the distant hills. “What is this, Zach?”
“Wrong. That’s what it is!” He dropped his arms, scooted farther away from her, and ran sweaty, trembling fingers through his long hair.
She pouted a little in the darkness. “Since when did you care about right and wrong?”
“Don’t play with me, Kat,” he warned and was surprised at the conviction in his voice.
“I just felt we had an understanding.” With a lift of her shoulder, she tucked her feet under her and stared down at him. “I don’t get it Zach. I thought—no, I knew—you wanted this.”
“I don’t.”
She snorted. “As a matter of fact, I was certain this is what you needed.”
“I don’t need you, Katherine,” he said, wishing he could put more distance between her sensual body and his own. “I don’t need anybody.”
“Oh, baby, that’s where you’re wrong.” To his mortification, she slid closer and patted his head as if he were a naughty little boy finally forgiven. Zach jerked away from her touch as if she repulsed him.
“Leave me alone, Kat,” he muttered between his teeth. His groin still ached and he was on fire inside, but he stared off into the distance, refusing to look at her. He focused instead on the ridge of dark mountains that loomed on the horizon and heard her sigh before she climbed to her feet, walked the short distance along the roof, slipped through the window, and disappeared into the hayloft.
When she was gone he flopped back on the weathered cedar shakes, angrily gazed up at the stars, and wondered why he was such a fool. He could have had her; she was there for the taking and he, because of some latent sense of nobility, had shrugged off her advances. He could still smell her perfume mingled with the lingering smoke from her cigarettes and he remembered her touch—that warm, bone-melting touch.
Jesus, you’re an idiot!
For the next few days, Zach managed to keep his distance. Up hours before Katherine ever thought about rising, he worked long hours in the fields and returned at sundown. Kat, invariably, was locked in her room, the television blasting. He never ran into her. As for his siblings, they all bothered him. Jason kept crowding him, offering to take him into Bend to meet women, but Zach declined and Jason went off prowling on his own. Trisha was pining for Mario and probably plotting her escape from the family compound. Sometimes she reeked
