Page 17 of Rainwater

“I want you, too. I want you to touch me,” Jennifer encouraged.

“I want to. God, you don’t know how much I want to. But I can’t.”

“Why? Don’t you want to make love to me?”

“Of course I do. I feel it every time I’m near you. But it wouldn’t work. You’re like the tree, rooted, stable, and I’m like the wind, restless, constantly moving.” He stepped back.

“Corey, the wind does blow through the tree and the tree does bend and spring back.”

“I don’t have anything to give you,” he moaned. “I’ll be leaving tomorrow on the first available bus. You said you would lend me bus fare.”

“I did say I would, but don’t go yet, please stay for just a little while and talk to me. If you don’t want me, I understand.”

He turned around, but she persisted. “You said you were in the hospital. What for?”

He stopped and looked over his shoulder.

“Please, Corey, I’m a really good listener.” She put all the pleading and beseeching she could muster into her voice, into her eyes, into the very air around them.

He released a ragged breath and sat down.

She sat across from him and curled her hands around her mug to keep from touching him. “You said you were in the hospital,” she prompted.

He surprised her by smiling that sweet boyish smile she liked so much, but then there wasn’t much about this man she disliked.

“I…I was a rodeo rider. A damn good one. I was…at the top, winning just about every rodeo for about ten years. Then I drew Widowmaker.”

Widowmaker . The blood seemed to stop flowing in her veins. A cold icy dread filled her. She knew about Widowmaker. He was one of the meanest, orneriest bulls to ever hit the circuit. “I heard they were going to remove him from the circuit.”

“They haven’t. Anyway, I drew him. I’ve ridden him before to the buzzer, except this time…my hand slipped. He moved to the left unexpectedly and I found myself eating dirt.” His eyes dropped to the table and he refused to look at her.

“And…what happened?”

“At first, I was dazed from the wild dizzying ride. I expected the rodeo clown to take care of the bull, but he didn’t. Widowmaker just ignored him. He came after me instead.”

“Oh, my God!”

“I scrambled out of the way. He charged and caught me along the ribs. It was just a scratch, but then he whirled and stood there, pushing up dirt with his foreleg. I think everyone in that arena stopped breathing; the silence was so absolute, like the calm before the storm. It was surreal, like something out of a movie. I didn’t know what to do.

I knew if I ran, he would catch me before I could make it to the fence.

The clown tried to get the bull’s attention off me, but Widowmaker was focused on me.

It was almost as if he wanted me and only me.

He charged again and I barely managed to get out of the way.

He gored me…in the hip so close to my…groin.

Anyway, he tossed me up in the air like I was a rag doll.

The clown opened the gate and he finally went through. I ended up in the hospital.”

“And what else?”

“You want it all, don’t you?”

“I want to know what you’re running from.”

“You wouldn’t understand.”

“Try me.”

“I break out in a cold sweat even thinking about the rodeo. It’s not an option anymore.”

“Bull riding is not the only competition.”

“I can’t even be in the ring again without losing it, Jennifer.

The first few times I tried bronc riding, I fell off because I couldn’t concentrate.

I couldn’t find my rhythm. Something happened to me.

I lost something that I can’t get back.” He was shocked that he was telling her this shameful story that he had never told anyone. “I’ve got to go,” he said abruptly.

“Corey, please don’t. Stay and tell me more.”

She got up and came around the table, unable to stand the pain and fear on his face.

She put her arms around him and he closed his eyes, pressing his face into the hollow of her breasts.

She knew that in that arena, in front of all those people, he’d lost himself.

His pride, his sense of worth. He’d lost his nerve.

But she felt that there was something else driving him besides the loss of his pride.

Something she wasn’t even sure he was aware of.

It was, she was certain, a temporary thing if only he could stop long enough to face his fear.

He struggled out of her hold and stood up, readying himself to leave. “I haven’t got anything to give you.”

Her eyes searched his deeply before she looked down, following the smooth, lean, muscular line of his body all the way to his groin where evidence of his arousal pressed solidly against his jeans. Her gaze lingered there. “Looks like you have more than enough.”

His groan was deep and long as his head dropped back. “You do know how to play with fire, but even a woman with backbone and sass can still get burned.”

He dropped back into the chair and leaned his elbows on the table, letting his head fall forward. A black silky curtain of hair covered his ravaged face.

Tenderness and the need to console him rose in her.

She leaned forward, bracing herself on the edge of the chair.

The nape of his neck was partially exposed and she brushed the rest of the silky black hair away and placed her mouth on his sensitive skin.

He smelled so good, male, musky. A heady virile scent that made her dizzy.

He moaned softly and twisted his head and Jennifer suspected he was going to tell her to stop.

But she didn’t stop. Her tongue came out and flicked against his hot skin like a lick of flame, and with a growl deep in his throat, he grabbed her around the waist and pulled her across his lap.

She protested with a soft sound of objection. She wanted to taste his salty skin again. She craved him like some women craved chocolate. An all-encompassing need for which there was no substitute.

The fierceness with which his mouth claimed hers took Jennifer’s breath away and quieted her complaint.

His mouth and lips were a different taste altogether.

It was wild, savage kiss, telling of a man who’d been alone for all his life.

A man who desperately needed her. She felt consumed, overpowered, safe.

“Ellie?” he whispered against her mouth.

“She’s sleeping,” she whispered back. He wasn’t going to pull away this time. She was primed for him, had been primed for a long time.

“Ah, hell.” He pulled away from her and sat up.

“Corey?”

“I don’t…damn…I don’t have any protection.”

Jennifer swallowed hard, gathering her courage. “I do.”

He looked at her then. The shock on his face would have made her laugh if she dared.

“What did you say?”

“I bought…some…a little while ago. I thought I was ready to get out there again.”

“Thought? You weren’t sure?”

“Everyone knows me in this town. I was worried they only cared about my assets.”

Corey laughed softly and leaned his head on her shoulder. “Jennifer, I’m interested in your assets, too.”

“Yeah, but you’re interested in getting into my jeans and I’m interested in letting you.”

“Where is it?”

“What?”

His laughter sputtered again. “The protection.”

“Oh.” She laughed, the humor diffusing her tension. “Upstairs in my bedroom.”

He rose in one powerful push of his thighs, cradling her in his arms. “Well, want to go get it?”

“Yes.” She licked her lips. “I want to get it real bad.”

He climbed the stairs effortlessly and walked into her room, kicking the door closed. He dropped her onto the bed and looked down at her. “I can’t sleep because I want you. I have a hard time working, knowing you’re in the house. Every time you come near me, I get hard.”

“Corey,” she breathed, excited beyond words, aching to join with this lonely, stubborn man. “Then don’t wait another minute. Why don’t you get rid of your clothes first?”

“That’s what I like. A woman who speaks her mind.

” He leaned down, placing both hands on either side of her shoulders and without preamble took her mouth in a searing brand of heated flesh, burning his delicious taste and compelling scent into her senses until her world was filled with him, until it encompassed only him.

She reached up, sliding her hands into the hot silk of his hair, tangling around the smooth strands.

He moved his mouth from hers, and his turquoise eyes burned with a seductive smoldering desire that spoke volumes.

He searched her eyes. “Say you want me, Jennifer. Tell me, darlin’.

” His voice was a raw whisper edged with a need that vibrated in the still room, vibrated through her, making her skin hum, her flesh burn, her heart melt like molten gold.

She had never even had a chance.

With all honesty, her voice hushed out, “I want you, Corey. I fought it, but it was too much for me.”

He sighed. “Ah, Jennifer,” he said, lowering his mouth to the soft skin of her neck and nuzzling her gently. “I know. God, how I know. It’s like trying to shoulder a mountain.”

“Speaking of shoulders, I’d like to see yours. Now.”

“Pushy little thing, aren’t you?”

“When I’m after something I want very desperately, yes.”

He stood up and unbuttoned his shirt much too slowly for her.

Unable to wait another minute, wanting to touch him with a fierce longing, she rose onto her knees and grabbed the shirt, slapping his hands out of the way.

She unbuttoned the material, soft and worn against her fumbling fingers.

Finally, the garment fell open and she eagerly grasped the edges, pulling the fabric away from his chest and pushing it off his shoulders to land on the carpet.

“Oh my God,” she breathed. “You are as beautiful as I remembered.” She placed her palms flat on his chest, testing his muscles, running her palms over his smooth, warm skin, over his nipples, rubbing a little harder when he groaned, the flat disks pebbling under her ministrations.

“You’re so sensitive.”