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He took her hand, feeling the smooth texture of her fingers in contrast to his hardened, callused palm. She would be that smooth and silky all over, and that was why he was sending her away. He saw her wide, soft lips part as she started to say something else, and hunger rose up in him like a tidal wave, crashing over barriers and sweeping everything away.
“I have to taste you,” he said in a low, harsh tone, carrying her hand upward to tuck it around his neck. “Just once.” His other arm circled her waist and pulled her to him as he bent his head.
It wasn’t a polite goodbye kiss. It was hard and deep. His mouth was hot and wild, with the taste of tobacco and himself. Madelyn put her other arm around his neck and hung on, because her legs had gone watery. The force of his mouth opened hers, and he took her with his tongue. He held her to him with painful pressure, crushing her breasts against him and cradling her pelvis against the hard, aching ridge of his manhood.
Vaguely she heard other people around them. It didn’t matter. He was making love to her with his mouth, arousing her, satisfying her, consuming her. He increased the slant of his head, tucking her head more firmly into his shoulder, and kissed her with all the burning sensuality she had sensed in him on first sight.
Her heart lurched as pleasure overrode shock, swiftly escalating to an almost unbearable tension. She not only welcomed the intrusion of his tongue, she met it with her own, making love to him as surely as he was to her. He shuddered, and for a second his arms tightened so fiercely that she moaned into his mouth. Instantly they loosened, and he lifted his head.
Breathing swiftly, only inches apart, they stared at each other. His expression was hard and sensual, his eyes dilated with arousal, his lips still gleaming from the moisture of their kiss. He was bending back toward her when another call for her flight stopped him, and he slowly released her.
Her entire body ached for him. She waited, hoping he would say the words that would keep her there, but instead he said, “You’d better go. You’ll miss your flight.”
She couldn’t speak. She nodded instead and walked away on shaky legs. She didn’t look back. It was bad form for a grown woman to howl like an infant, and that was what she was very much afraid she would do if she gave in to the need to see him for even a split second.
She had gotten off the plane in Billings feeling confident and alive with anticipation. She left twenty-four hours later feeling shattered.
ROBERT MET HER plane in New York, which told Madelyn how worried he’d been. She gave him a parody of a smile and saw his pale eyes sharpen as he immediately read her distress. The smile wobbled and collapsed, and she walked into his arms. She didn’t cry; she didn’t let herself cry, but her chest heaved with convulsive breaths as she fought for control.
“I’ll kill him,” Robert said in a very soft, almost gentle tone.
Madelyn shook her head and took one more deep breath so she could talk. “He was a perfect gentleman. He’s a hard-working, salt-of-the-earth type, and he said I wasn’t suitable for the job.”
He rocked her gently back and forth. “And that hurt your ego?”
She raised her head and managed a real smile this time, though it was just as wobbly as the first. “No, I think he managed to break my heart.”
Robert gave her a searching look, reading the expression in her bottomless gray eyes. “You don’t fall in love in one day.”
“Sometimes you don’t, sometimes you do. He didn’t feel the same way, so it’s something I have to live with.”
“Maybe it’s just as well.” Keeping his arm around her shoulders, he guided her toward the entrance. “I investigated him—I know, you told me not to,” he added warily as he saw the menacing look she gave him. “But he would be a tough man for any woman to live with. He’s understandably bitter about the raw deal he got in his divorce—”
“I know,” she said. “He told me about it.”
“Then you know that any woman he marries will have a cold marriage. He’s still carrying a lot of anger inside him.”
“I saw the ranch. He has reason to be angry.”
“His ex-wife and her family took him to the cleaners. I’ve dealt with them—cautiously. You have to be careful when you wade into a pool of barracudas.”
“I’d like for you to ruin them financially, if you can, please,” she said in the manner of a socialite idly asking for another glass of champagne.
“That won’t give him back what he lost.”
“No, but I’m vindictive enough that I want to see them get what they deserve.”
“You don’t have a vindictive bone in your body.”
“Yes I do,” she said in the same gentle tone he occasionally used, the one that made smart people back away.
He kissed her hair and hugged her closer. “So what are you going to do now?”
“Carry on, I suppose.” She shrugged. “There’s nothing else I can do.”
Robert looked at her, wryly admiring her resilience. Madelyn was a trouper; she always carried on. Sometimes she needed a crutch for a while, but in the end she stood upright again and continued on her own. Reese Duncan had to be a lot of man to have gotten to her this way.
TWO WEEKS LATER, Reese got back into his truck after seeing his latest visitor, Juliet Johnson, off on the bus. He cursed and slammed his fist against the steering wheel, then lit a cigarette and began smoking it with fast, furious puffs.
