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She dove for the bird, sliding along the ground on her belly and just missing the frantic bird. Reese winced and straightened away from the truck, horrified at the thought of what the dirt and rocks were doing to her soft skin, but she jumped up and took off after the hen. The bird ran in erratic circles around the yard, then darted under the truck. Madelyn swerved to head it off, and another headlong tackle fell an inch short.
“Look, just forget about the chick—” he began, but she was already gone.
The bird managed to take flight enough to land in the lower branches of a tree, but it was still over Madelyn’s head. She narrowed her eyes and bent to pick a few rocks up from the ground. She wound up and let fly. The rock went over the chicken’s head. The hen pulled her head down, her bright little eyes glittering. The next rock hit the limb next to her and she squawked, shifing position. The third rock hit her on the leg, and she took flight again.
This time Madelyn judged her dive perfectly. She slid along the ground in a flurry of dust and pebbles, and her hand closed over one of the hen’s legs. The bird immediately went wild, flapping her wings and trying to peck the imprisoning hand that held her. They grappled in the dust for a minute, but then Madelyn stood up with the hen upside down and firmly held by both feet, its wings spread. Her hands were dotted with blood where the furious hen had pecked her, breaking the skin. “Faster th
an a speeding pullet,” she said with grim triumph.
Reese could only stare at her in silence as she stalked up to him. Her hair was a mess, tangled and hanging in her eyes. Her face was caked with dust, her shirt was filthy and torn, and her jeans were a mess. One kneepad had come loose and was drooping down her shin. The look in those gray eyes, however, kept him from laughing. He didn’t dare even smile.
The chicken hit him in the chest, and he grabbed for it, just preventing the bird from making a break for freedom.
“There’s your damn chicken,” she said between her teeth. “I hope you’re very happy together.” She slammed back into the house.
Reese looked down at the bird and remembered the blood on Madelyn’s hands. He wrung the hen’s neck with one quick, competent twist. He’d never felt less like laughing.
He carried the dead bird inside and dropped it on the floor. Madelyn was standing at the sink, carefully soaping her hands. “Let me see,” he said, coming up behind her and reaching around to take her hands in his, effectively pinning her in place. The hen had drawn blood in several places, painful little puncture wounds that were blue around the edges. He’d had a few of them himself and knew how easily they could become infected.
He reached for a towel to wrap around her hands. “Come upstairs to the bathroom and I’ll put disinfectant on them.”
She didn’t move. “It’s my hands, not my back. I can reach them just fine, thank you. I’ll do it myself.”
His muscled arms were iron bands around her; his hard hands held her easily. Her front was pressed against the sink, and his big body was against her back, hemming her in, holding her. She felt utterly surrounded by him and had the sudden violent thought that she should never have married someone who was almost a foot taller than she was. She was at a woeful disadvantage here.
He bent, hooked his right arm under her kness and lifted her with insulting ease. Madelyn grabbed for his shoulders to keep her balance. “The hen pecked my hands, not my feet,” she said caustically.
He slanted a warning look at her as he started up the stairs.
“Men who use force against women are lower than slugs.”
His arms tightened, but he kept a tight rein on his temper. He carried her into the bathroom and put her on her feet. As he opened the medicine cabinet she headed out the door, and he grabbed her with one hand, hauling her back. She tugged violently, trying to free her arm. “I said I’d do it myself!” she said, furious with him.
He put the lid down on the toilet, sat down and pulled her onto his lap. “Be still and let me clean your hands. If you still want to fight after I’m finished, then I’ll be glad to oblige you.”
Fuming, Madelyn sat on his lap while he dabbed the small wounds with an antiseptic that stung sharply. Then he smoothed antibiotic cream on them and put Band-Aids over the two worst breaks. His arms were still around her; he was holding her as a parent would a child, to soothe it and tend its hurts. She didn’t like the comparison, even if it was her own. She shifted restlessly, feeling his hard thighs under her bottom.
His face was very close to hers. She could see all the different colored specks in his eyes, green and blue dominating, but shot through with black and white and a few glittering flecks of gold. Though he had shaved the night before, his beard had already grown enough to roughen his cheeks and chin. The brackets on each side of his mouth framed the beautiful cut of his lips, and suddenly she remembered the way he had closed those lips over her nipple, sucking her tender flesh into his mouth. She quivered, and the rigidity went out of her body.
Reese closed the first-aid box and set it aside, then let his arm rest loosely across her thighs as he gave her a measuring look. “Your face is dirty.”
“So let me up and I’ll wash it.”
He didn’t. He washed it himself, slowly drawing a wet washcloth over her features, the fabric almost caressing her skin. He wiped her mouth with a touch so light she could barely feel it and watched the cloth tug slightly at her soft, enticing lower lip. Madelyn’s head tilted back, and her eyelids drooped. He drew the cloth down her neck, wiped it across her exposed collarbone, then dipped his hand down inside the loose neck of her top.
She caught her breath at the damp coolness on her breasts. He drew the cloth back and forth, slowly rasping it across her nipples and bringing them to wet attention. Her breasts began to throb, and her back arched involuntarily, offering them for more. She could feel a hard ridge growing, pressing against her hip, and her blood moved heavily through her veins.
He tossed the washcloth into the basin and took his hat off, dropping it onto the floor. The arm behind her back tightened and drew her in to him as he bent his head, and his mouth closed over hers.
It was the same way he’d kissed her in the airport, the way he hadn’t kissed her since. His mouth was hard and hot, urgent in his demands. His tongue pushed into her mouth, and she met it with her own, welcoming, enticing, wanting more.
She gave way beneath his onslaught, her head falling back against his shoulder. He pursued the advantage, taking her mouth again, putting his hand beneath her shirt and closing it over her breast. Gently he kneaded the firm mound, rubbing his rough palm over the nipple until she whimpered into his mouth from the exquisite pain of it. She turned toward him, lifting her arms around his neck. Excitement pounded in the pit of her stomach, tightening every muscle in her body and starting an aching tension between her legs.
With a rough sound of passion he bent her back over his arm and shoved her top up, exposing her breasts. His warm breath feathered across them as he bent to her; then he extended the tip of his tongue and circled one pink nipple, making it constrict into a tightly puckered nub and turn reddish. He shifted her body, bringing her other breast closer to his mouth, and gave that nipple identical treatment, watching with pleasure as it, too, tightened.
Madelyn clutched at him. “Reese,” she begged in a low, shaking voice. She needed him.
This was the hot magic she had sensed about him from the beginning, the blatant sensuality. This was the warm promise she had felt lying beneath him at night, and she wanted more.
