Chasing the Sunset(26)

“I never learned,” she confessed, and Nick’s fingers pulled slightly on the strand of hair, forcing Maggie to move closer to him. “I would like to learn now. I . . . I . . . “

She lost her train of thought as he moved even closer, his voice dropping to a low murmur.

“I would love to teach you to ride,” he said softly, staring down into her eyes intently. He saw her pupils dilate with sudden passionate arousal, and he watched the pulse leap in her throat. It set him on fire to know that she wanted him as much as he wanted her. Maggie was unable to look away from him. She trembled with the force of her need, and she knew he noticed that revealing quiver.

“Nick,” she breathed, and he bent nearer to her, almost brushing her mouth with his. He brought up a work-hardened finger and traced the soft pink contours of her sensual mouth. He was so close that Maggie felt his breath upon her face. It was warm, and smelled sweetly of mint. Kathleen often teased him about the mint leaves he carried around in his pocket.

“Like a cow with his cud,” she would whisper loudly to Maggie and then giggle when Nick glared at her.

Maggie was in a position now to appreciate the sweet smell of the mint on his warm breath, and she thought crazily that tomorrow she would tell Kathleen not to tease him about it anymore. Then his lips touched hers, and she forgot how to think.

His mouth brushed over hers softly, sweetly, tenderly. He learned the taste and texture of her with his lips, with such thorough slowness that Maggie felt each throbbing caress was pulling the heart right out of her body. He had not shaved since early morning, and his whiskers abraded her tender skin as he pressed his cheek to hers. Maggie loved feeling the roughness against her face, and rubbed against him like a little cat, seeking more of the sensation. Her hands crept up to hold his face tenderly. He was stealing the essence of her; her soul rose up and was a slave to the pleasure he gave her, and everything ceased to exist save the pressure of his mouth on hers.

When he pulled back, she wanted to cry. She felt such a sharp sense of loss as her hands loosened and fell to her sides as he moved away from her. Her arms felt empty, and her pulse careened at high speed through her veins. She shook all over, as with an ague, and as he straightened up and pulled away from her, they never lost eye contact. Eye to eye they stood, and Maggie saw an echo of her own want in the brown depths of his. He let a strand of hair slide slowly from his fingers as he pulled farther and farther away.

“Tomorrow, after dinner,” he said softly, and Maggie had a hard time concentrating on his words. She shook her head, to clear it, and a satisfied smile lit up his face, making his teeth flash white against his sun-darkened skin.

“No? That is not good for you?" He laughed softly as Maggie shook her head again and stuttered out something nearly incoherent. "That is not what you meant? Unless you have an objection, we will start your riding lessons tomorrow after dinner,” he said again.

“Oh, that ... that will be fine,” was all she could say, and he smiled again.

“Goodnight, Maggie,” he said gently, and turned to walk away.

“Goodnight,” she said, and watched him walk away. As he turned the corner, he began to whistle.

****************************



“Easy, now, easy,” Nick said soothingly, and Maggie was not sure if he spoke to her or the horse.

This was her second riding lesson; she had spent the first learning how to saddle and bridle the gentle old mare he had chosen for her, and leading the plump old thing around a ring. Nick had taken every excuse to touch her during the lessons, and it was driving her mad. If it all was not so shattering, she might have found it funny. But the joke was on her, and she nearly wept with frustration as he teased her with another gentle graze of his hand. She had started this whole thing to tempt Nick, and she was the one who was tempted. Her mouth went dry every time he got near here, and she tensed in anticipation of his lightest touch.

He had insisted that she wear pants for her riding lesson, saying that sidesaddles were nothing but an invitation to a broken neck, and that there was no room here in the wilds for citified ways and mores. She would be just as safe with him wearing a pair of trousers as she was in a dress; and on a horse, trousers were better. So Maggie was wearing a pair of Tommy’s castoffs, and the unfamiliar feel of the trousers unnerved her. She liked the freedom that they granted her, but the way they hugged her bottom and clung to her legs made her more aware of her own body than she usually was. His hand slid over her leg just now, and she jumped. The placid old mare did not seem so placid to her now, and Maggie could feel the horse shifting uneasily underneath her.

She bit her lip, and clutched the saddle horn. The ground certainly seemed a long way down.

“Loosen up on the reins,” he said quietly. “You are making her nervous.”

Maggie laughed shakily. “She is nervous? I am practically shaking my bones loose up here.”

“And she can tell,” he said. “I am going to lead you around a little. See if you can quit squeezing that saddle horn to death and sit up straight.”

Maggie tried to do as he said. She consciously relaxed the muscles of her legs and loosened the death grip she had on the saddle.

“Feel the motion of the horse,” he said quietly. “Move with the horse. It is like rocking in a cradle. Enjoy the feeling, Maggie, and trust me. I would not let you get hurt.”

Maggie’s eyes fixed to the back of his dark head as he walked her around and around. Her eyes slid admiringly down the rest of him. She could see the movement of his muscles underneath his supple skin, and she wanted to crawl inside him, to get so close she was a part of him. Her longing to hold him and have him hold her was eating her alive. It was more than desire; she wanted him. She was so busy staring at his firm backside outlined by those sinfully tight pants that when he turned around she was caught unawares. He watched her with amusement and a certain satisfaction in his fine dark eyes as she flushed a dark red, and Maggie. jumped slightly when he spoke.

“You are doing better,” he said, his voice low and caressing. “You are not concentrating on how scared you are anymore . . . you must have been thinking of something else.”

Maggie blushed hotter, embarrassed that he had caught her looking at him. She lifted her chin.

“Yes,” she said haughtily. “I was thinking about something else. I was thinking about your dinner guests for tomorrow night.”

He frowned. “Oh, yes,” he said shortly. “Your beau, the good doctor. I am sure that you are planning on having a wonderful time.”

“Kathleen and her parents are coming, too, and Doctor Fell,” Maggie reminded him. “And he is not my beau, you stubborn ox,” she said underneath her breath. Nick’s head was turned away, or she would have seen him smile at her muttered imprecation.

“I am not stubborn,” he said calmly. “I just know when I am right.”

“Which is hardly ever,” Maggie shot back. “You do not know half as much as you think you do.”

“Lesson’s over,” he said. “Let’s take you back. You have done pretty well,” he complimented her, then smiled a slow smile that made the blood sizzle in her veins. “Once I distracted you and got you to stop thinking about falling off. We will continue later but not tomorrow, since we have guests coming for dinner tomorrow. And I never thought that I would long for the days when you were afraid to argue with me.”

“You are enjoying this, aren’t you?” she asked furiously as he showed her the correct way to dismount, gripping her hip in a way that made her muscles quiver and tighten. When she slung

one leg over the horse, his hand grazed her buttock.

“Enjoying what?” he asked innocently. “Teaching you to ride?”

Maggie stalked off to the house, leaving Nick chuckling behind her, and that little sound made her even madder and more frustrated than she already was.



Maggie ran the brush through her hair, somberly studying her reflection in the mirror. She was wearing the green dress that she and Kathleen had made together, the one that Kathleen had said matched her eyes, and it looked good on her. The simple straight lines of the dress complimented her somewhat top-heavy figure. She tugged at the sweetheart neckline, wishing not for the first time that she was not so well endowed up front. No matter how she pulled and tugged, a deep line of cleavage showed above the innocent ruffle of the dress, and it looked indecent to her. She flung the brush down, and pinned her hair up quickly. No amount of fussing was going to make her bosom smaller, and she would just have to live with it. Kathleen had not seemed to think the neckline too low; on the contrary, when Maggie complained about it, she said that it was perfectly acceptable for evening, and she could just tuck in a lace fichu during the day.

They had worked on the menu all this week. She had agreed with Kathleen to keep it simple, like the meals that they ate every day. A huge ham from the smokehouse was roasted and juicy. The potatoes were boiled and just waiting to be mashed and they were having green beans and corn that they had canned themselves from the garden. Cherry pies cooled in the kitchen, made from cherries that they had picked themselves from the trees behind the stables, earlier in the summer. That is, if Tommy had managed to keep his fingers out of them. She grinned. He had been wheedling for a piece of that pie all day, and Kathleen had finally boxed his ears for him.