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He un
buttoned her blouse while she performed the same service for his shirt. When he had unclipped her bra he slowly brought their bare torsos together, turning her slightly from side to side so that her breasts rubbed his chest and his curly hair rasped against her nipples, making her arch in his arms.
“God, I can’t get enough of you,” he muttered.
“I don’t want you to.” Passion had glazed her eyes, making them heavy and slumberous. He took her mouth again, and he was still kissing her when she cried out and convulsed in a crest of pleasure. He held himself deep within her, feeling the hot, gentle tightening of her inner caresses around him. He would never find this kind of overwhelming passion with any other woman, he thought dimly. Only with Maddie.
Release left her weak, pliable. She lay back across the hood of the car, breathing hard, her eyes closed. Reese gripped her hips and began thrusting hard and fast, wanting that sweet weakness for himself. Her eyes slowly opened as he drove into her, and she closed her hands around his wrists. “I love you,” she said again.
Until he heard the words once more he hadn’t realized how badly he’d needed them, wanted them. She was his, and had been from the moment she’d walked through the airport toward him. He groaned, and his hips jerked; then the pleasure hit him, and he couldn’t think for a long time. All he could do was feel, and sink forward onto her soft body and into her arms.
In bed that night, he gently traced his fingertips over the curve of her shoulder. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I was out of line today, way out.”
She kissed him drowsily on the jaw. “I think I understand more than before. Did April…?”
“Have other men? Yeah.”
“The fool,” she muttered, sliding her hand down to intimately caress him.
He tilted her head up. “I wasn’t a saint, Maddie. I can be hard to live with.”
She widened her eyes mockingly and made a disbelieving sound. He chuckled and then sighed, spreading his legs. What her hand was doing to him felt so good it was almost criminal. She was all woman, and this was going to end up only one way, but he wanted to put it off for a few minutes.
“You’re right, I’ve been trying to keep you a prisoner on the ranch. It won’t happen again.”
“I’m not going to run off,” she assured him in a whisper. “I’ve got what I want right here. And you were right about one thing.”
“What?”
“Making love is one of the best ways to make up.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
REESE SOLD THE beef herd for more than he had anticipated, or even hoped. With cholesterol-consciousness at such a high level he had been working to breed and raise cattle with leaner meat that still remained tender, and all his research was paying off. He made his mortgage payments with grim satisfaction, because he had enough left over to expand the herd come spring and bring in some new blood strains he’d been wanting to try. He’d be able to repair equipment when it needed it, instead of scraping and saving and doing without. He’d even be able to take Madelyn out to eat once in a while. It galled him that the limit of their outside entertainment was an occasional cup of coffee or slice of pie at Floris’s café. He wanted to be able to take Madelyn places and spoil her, buy her new clothes and jewelry, all the things he had once taken for granted in his life. The ranch was a long way from being as rich as it had once been, but he was clawing his way back. He’d made a profit, by God! He was in the black.
Madelyn had gone into Billings with him when he conferred with his banker. He’d expected her to want to go shopping; though he realized more every day how different Maddie was from April, he also wryly accepted that his wife was a clotheshorse. The fact that she loved clothes was evident in the way she dressed even while working at the ranch. It might be just jeans and a shirt, but the jeans would fit her in a way guaranteed to send his blood pressure up, and the shirt would look as stylish as if it had come straight from Paris. What really got to him was the way she would put on one of his white dress shirts, not button any of the buttons, and knot the tails at her waist. She wouldn’t have a bra on under it, either. It was a style and a provocation that he couldn’t resist, and she knew it. First his hand would be inside the shirt; then the shirt would be off; then they would be making love wherever they happened to be.
She did shop, but again she surprised him. She bought underwear and jeans for him; then she was ready to go home. “I don’t know how I ever stood a city as large as New York,” she said absently, looking around at the traffic. “This is too noisy.” He was astonished; Billings had less than seventy thousand inhabitants, and barroom brawls were far more the norm than any gang- or drug-related violence. No, Maddie wasn’t like April, who had considered Billings nothing more than a backwater crossroads. To April, only cities like New York, London, Paris, Los Angeles and Hong Kong had been sophisticated enough for her enjoyment.
Madelyn was indeed glad to get back to the ranch. She was happiest there, she realized. It was quiet, with the peace that came only from being close to earth and nature. And it was her home now.
It was the middle of the afternoon when they got back, and Reese changed clothes to begin his chores. It was too early to start dinner, so Madelyn went out on the porch and sat in the swing. It was early autumn, and already the heat was leaving the day. Reese said it wasn’t unusual to have snow in October, so the days when she would be able to sit out on the porch were limited. Still, she was looking forward to the winter, hard as it might be. The days would be short and the nights long, and she smiled as she thought of those long nights.
Reese came back downstairs from changing his clothes and found her there. The chores would wait a little while, he thought, and joined her on the swing. He put his arm around her and brought her closer, so that her head was nestled in the hollow of his shoulder.
“I was just thinking,” she said, “it’ll be winter soon.”
“Sooner than you think.”
“Christmas isn’t that far away now. Could I invite Robert?”
“Of course. He’s your family.”
She smiled. “I know, but the warmth between you at our wedding wasn’t exactly overwhelming.”
“What did you expect, given the circumstances? Men are territorial. He didn’t want to give you up, and I was determined to have you come hell or high water.” He nudged her chin up with his thumb and gave her a slow kiss. “And I was a stranger who was going to be taking his sister to bed that night.”
For a moment there was only the creaking of the swing. He kissed her again, then just held her. He hadn’t known marriage could be like this, he thought with vague surprise. Both passion and contentment.
