what’s this?” he asked, his tone a mixture of humor, curiosity and delight.
Then he tipped her chin up and looked down into her eyes. “This won’t hurt a bit. But I need it like I need to breathe,” he said before his hands cradled her face and he took her mouth.
She hadn’t expected the sudden fire, the slant of his lips hungrily fused to hers. Savage and demanding, the kiss tasted of fire and need and...and dreams and longing. Caught in the whirlwind, she traveled with him, the heat growing, warming her, filling her. She ached now for him. Rio’s mouth slanted, tasted, linking them as though nothing could tear them apart. She could feel his blood pound, race, and her own leaped and heated, causing her fingertips to dig into his shoulders, to the safety of Rio, to anchor herself to him in the storm.
Deep within her, she knew that Rio had claimed a very feminine and guarded portion of her, that she’d remember this devastating kiss forever. Then his mouth moved softly over hers, comforting, brushing and seeking, tasting the corners of her lips. He held her face, cupping it in his hands, his thumbs smoothing her flushed cheeks. In his black eyes, she saw herself—a woman warmed, soft and waiting.
With a reluctant groan, Rio bent, sweeping her up into his arms, and strode toward the cabin. An independent, worldly woman, she should have objected, but her legs were weak, both from fear and from the shattering, savage, then tender kiss. One look at Rio’s dark determined expression and she knew she’d have a fight freeing herself. He was scowling, anger in the hard lock of his muscles, the set of his jaw. For once, Paloma tossed aside her pride and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. He kissed her temple and whispered roughly, “We’re in sunshine now, honey. Feel the breeze. Listen to the birds sing. You’re safe.”
“Boone said that same thing years ago.” She shivered, the bands of fear closing around her chest. He shouldn’t be carrying her, a six-foot woman, like a child. But still wrapped in terror and her shocking discovery that she liked kissing Rio, Paloma wasn’t certain she could walk by herself. “You’ll put me down now,” she whispered in an effort to salvage her shields and her pride, to withdraw from what she had given him—an insight into her terror and into her needs as a woman.
“No. Shut up.”
He trembled within her arms and the pulse at Rio’s throat pounded, racing against her cheek. She recognized the fear etched in the taut lines of his jaw, the set of his mouth. “You were frightened.”
He didn’t answer, his arms tightening around her as he moved up the steps to the cabin.
“It’s the boy, isn’t it?” she asked as he carried her into the cabin. At the feed store, when Pueblo had mentioned the boy, Rio’s expression had quickly closed over pain. When he didn’t answer this time, she knew the boy haunted him. Rio had been afraid he couldn’t save her, either.
“Sit still.” He plopped her on a chair and hurriedly stoked the old stove, placing fresh water in the kettle. His movements were angry, sudden, tearing the old tin tub down from its peg and placing it on the floor. He looked at his shaking hands, the fingers spread. “You’ll want a bath. But first a cup of tea and something to eat.”
He quickly rummaged through the shelves to find chamomile tea, placing a bag in a cup and almost slammed it to the table beside her. He pushed his hands through his hair, glanced angrily at her and muttered in a disgusted tone, “You look like a child, huddled there in my jacket—frightened, shivering, wide-eyed, streaks of dirt across your nose. And damn it, your mouth—It’s swollen. I hurt you.”
He glanced at the bed, closed his eyes and inhaled sharply. He picked up the two water buckets and left the cabin.
Paloma sat and shook, her hands trembling as she sipped her tea. Rio returned, placed the buckets on the stove. With each glance, his expression darkened and his anger lashed at her. “I’ll be outside,” he said too stiffly. She sat for a time, collecting safety around her. Rio was clearly angry, the cabin still vibrating with it
She managed to kneel by the galvanized tub and wash her hair. Then she bathed, sundown skimming through the pines to enter the old glass windows. She pushed her tenor back into the past and dressed in a flannel shirt and jeans. She’d given away too much to Rio; he’d seen too much inside her. She pushed and shoved and gathered her shields; as a survivor, Paloma knew how to protect herself.
“Finished,” she said, coming out into the chilly night, her hair combed and free, falling to her waist.
“rll fix supper.” Rio had been sitting, staring off into the forest, his expression grim. His hair was damp, as though he’d bathed in the icy creek, and he’d changed clothes. His sleeping bag was propped against the horses’ saddles on the porch. She noted that her lacy underwear had been tossed on a chair.
He surged to his feet, hauled the packs into his fists with one sweep and stalked inside the cabin. Uncertain of his mood, she followed him inside. “Don’t bother to cook for me.”
He lasered a dark look at her. “I’m hungry, okay?”
“Why are you angry? Because you kissed me?” Paloma swallowed the dry lump in her throat. She didn’t appeal to men. Too rangy, too big, too bold and tough—Jonathan had made that very clear. Rio would be regretting it now, that savage hungry kiss and his tenderness.
He placed his hands on his hips, then one hand shot out to capture a length of her damp hair, lifting her face to his angry one. “What do you think you’re doing, slim? Coming up here, walking around, free as a bird while a bear could taste you at any moment?”
That wild need surged inside her, the hunger that had simmered in her for months. She studied him, that savage expression, those dark eyes lashing her. “Is that what you did? Taste?”
His tone wasn’t nice. One black eyebrow lifted at her wamingly. “Honey, you’re not up to sparring with me. And I’m not Boone.”
She snorted at that “I’ll say. He was the sweetest man I’ve ever known.”
His gaze slowly took in her face, and darkened as he looked at her mouth. “Don’t count on me being sweet. Not where you’re concerned.”
“Don’t feel sorry for me. I should never have told you anything,” she shot back, angry with him, angry with herself for giving him an insight she’d locked away for years. She pushed his hand away. “I know you regret kissing me. I’m not your usual fare. But we both had a reaction to a deadly situation. I know I—”
Rio slapped a cast-iron skillet on the old stove; the metallic crash echoed against the cabin’s walls. “Lay off. While I’m cooking, why don’t you go make friends with your new horse? Her name is Mai-Ling.”
“My horse? But I couldn’t.” She’d never owned an animal, or wanted to; loving ties could so easily be torn away.
“If you’re going to live up here, you’ll need her.”
Rio was right; her damaged ankle had protested the hike up the mountain. “I’ll buy her or rent her and you can have her back when I’m done. How much?”
Rio looked up at the ceiling as though asking for divine help and shook his head. “You just don’t get it, do you?”
Three
“Smooth, Rio. Real smooth,” Rio muttered as he lay on the front porch
