and looked away from him, her eyes intent on the barn.
“Hasn’t anyone ever called you sweetsy names, Katherine?” he asked softly. “Haven’t there ever been any men hangin’ around, tryin’ to court you or just tryin’ to get your attention?”
She spun back to face him and her eyes were bleak. “Take a good look at me, Roan Devereaux! Do I look like the sort of woman men come to court? I’m sure not good-looking, and too old to be having babies much longer, and too plainspoken for most of the men hereabouts. What have I got to offer a man in his right mind?”
She was serious! By damn, she was! Standing there telling him she was too dried up to appeal to a man. And here he’d been feeling like a randy, apple-cheeked boy around here for the better part of a week already. With that slim body hiding beneath those ugly dresses she put on every morning, and that long, dark hair that made his fingers itch to twine themselves in its length. Not good-looking? With color like the pale side of a peach and skin like a newborn babe’s and those dark blue eyes that reached inside and touched a man’s soul…Well, it was too much to be believed.
“Ah, hell, Katherine! You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” he said harshly. He allowed his eyes to roam the length of her, from the darkness of her hair, fresh and clean and smelling like the soap she kept by the kitchen sink, to the leather thong that held her dress loosely about her waist.
She blinked at him, shook her head in bewilderment at his words. “I do,” she said, denying him.
His hands came to rest once more on her shoulders, this time holding her firmly, lest she pull from his grasp. “Do not,” he growled. And then he bent forward and claimed the mouth that had begun to form another protest.
She gasped in surprise, aware only of heated breath filling her mouth, warm flesh covering her lips, containing her in a damp, hungry embrace that sent her senses reeling. She drew in air through her nose and stared at him, her eyes unable to focus, only aware of the thick brush of his eyebrows, riding above his heavy-lidded eyes. And then he closed them, those dark, unfathomable orbs that had so easily warmed her with their regard just seconds past.
Her lips attempted to close, but he would not let her bring them together, playing along the edges with the hot sword of his tongue instead. There, just inside her upper lip, where the flesh was tender and sensitive, he brushed his weapon. Back and forth he swept with a slow movement that brought a gasp of surprise from her throat. He swallowed that, too, resuming his exploration of her mouth, his lips closing just a bit, his teeth finding a hold on her lower lip as if he would nip lightly at the delicate skin. Then, catching her unaware, he moved to whisper a series of kisses from one side of her upper lip to the other, his mustache teasing her sensitive flesh. He chuckled softly.
“Roan!” she whispered on a quick gasp of air.
“No more Mr. Devereaux?” he asked with another chuckle.
She was stunned. Speechless and inert, she hung between his hands, only the grip of his fingers holding her erect. And then those warm hands slid the length of her arms and somehow fastened themselves about her waist, finding a home at the small of her back, where he clasped his fingers to hold her captive.
“Never been kissed, Katherine?” he asked gently.
“Of course I…” She stopped. “No…you know I haven’t,” she admitted finally, fastening her eyes on his, afraid to allow them permission to look fully at the mouth that had plundered her own so thoroughly.
“You’ll do better with a little practice,” he told her cheerfully. “But for a beginner, you sure pack a wallop, lady.”
“A wallop?”
“A punch,” he explained, delighted by the color washing over her countenance once more. He looked at her assessingly. How had he thought her plain? The fine lines of her eyebrows cast a perfect frame above the brilliant blue of her eyes. Eyes that were viewing him with a wonderment that pleased him immensely. Her nose was almost too straight, only a small deviation at the tip marring its perfection, almost like a dimple. And then there was her mouth. He looked at it again, soft and swollen a bit, reddened from his caresses. He tugged her closer against him and she gasped, the sound a shocked whisper of his name.
“Roan!” She stiffened against him. Against her body, pressed tightly, with only the layers of clothing they wore separating her from its threat, she felt…Her eyes closed again and her lips tightened.
“Let me go.” It was quiet, but a demand echoed in those words, and he obeyed.
“I’m sorry, Katherine. I didn’t mean to…”
She stepped back once, and then again, until the wooden wall of the house pressed against her back. Her face was pale now. Gone was the becoming flush, the pink cheeks stained by her guileless innocence.
“I didn’t mean to frighten you,” he said quietly, allowing her the width of the porch, aware he had invaded unforgivably.
“I’m sure you have things to do in the barn or the pasture…or somewhere,” she managed to say, her voice high and breathless in her ears. Here she’d been worried about Evan Gardner coming around, giving her trouble, causing her grief. Somehow she knew Evan Gardner couldn’t hold a candle to Roan Devereaux when it came to causing problems for her.
In fact, if the sensations washing their way through her body were any indication, Roan Devereaux had already managed to cause more hassle than she was equipped to handle.
“And that’s a fact,” she mumbled beneath her breath as she watched him stride, with only an almost imperceptible limp, across the yard toward the corral.
“I’ll wash your clothes if you bring them to the house.”
He’d wondered how she would greet him this morning. After the general all-around mess he’d made of last evening, he hadn’t known what to expect. Certainly, Katherine knew what to look for from a man who was all hot and bothered. Or did she? Her total experience with males appeared to have begun and ended with horse breeding. Hell, that ought to have taught her something!
He looked at her finally, aware she’d been fidgeting about with her hands all twisted up in her apron, waiting for an answer to her offer. Her expression was calm, but a telltale tinge of pink stained her cheeks, and together with the knot she was managing to put in the front of her voluminous apron, he knew she’d dreaded this encounter.
“I reckon I’d appreciate havin’ my clothes washed up, Katherine,” he responded gently. “I can scrub them out myself, though, if you leave the water when you’ve finished your own things.”
“That won’t be necessary. I’ve done a passel of laundry in my day, keeping my menfolk clean,” she answered crisply. Her eyes met his gaze for a moment and then skittered off to fasten on the low ceiling of the barn, just over his head.
“I’ll bring them up to the house directly. Soon as I finish putting this stall door back together.”
She nodded briefly and turned to make her way from the barn. Roan’s eyes rested on the dark dress that hung so limply from her squared shoulders, and his mouth twisted in a smile of remembrance as
