touch you…”
“Just kiss me,” she whispered back, lifting her mouth to him. “Just kiss me and the rest will take care of itself.”
“Shouldn’t…” The single word came out on another groan.
“Oh, yes. You should…” So…heady. This magic. This power she was finding she had over him. The magic of wanting. The power of desire.
Who knew it could be like this between a man and woman? She never would have guessed. Every nerve in her body seemed to be singing. She was shivery—but with wonderful, heavy, lazy heat.
“Damn. You’re killing me, you know that?”
“Oh, Grant…”
He took her by the arms then, and she was sure all over again that he would set her away from him.
But in the end, he only grabbed her closer as his warm mouth swooped down and covered hers.
Oh, it was amazing. Her senses swam at the feel of him, pressing her close, his hands stroking her back as his tongue traced the seam where her lips met. With a sigh, she let them part for him.
He speared his tongue inside. She sucked on it, boldly, and when he retreated, she followed him, into the warm, hot cave beyond those wonderful lips of his.
She clutched his shoulders as he guided her down onto the blanket. He kissed her more deeply, still, his tongue delving in, sweeping along the edges of her teeth, stroking her own tongue in a long, wet glide.
Oh, it was heaven.
Just as she’d dreamed it might be.
His hand cupped her breast. Beneath her shirt and bra, her nipple hardened, aching. She moaned and lifted her body toward him, wanting more.
Wanting everything. Ready to have it all, at last, right there, on that blanket, in the lovely, shadowed, private place beneath the birch trees…
To have it all with Grant, as she’d always dreamed. To be fully a woman at last, with the only man she’d ever loved.
He kissed her chin, nipping it, whispering her name against her eager flesh. He kissed the side of her neck, opening his mouth there, licking her skin, making her shiver in the most delicious way…
He kissed the hollow of her throat and she stretched her neck back, spearing her fingers into his hair, cupping his head and cradling him close, urging him to kiss her some more, to keep on kissing her.
To never stop.
“Oh, Grant,” she whispered, “Oh, Grant. Yes. Please. Yes…”
His warm hand trailed downward. She wanted… more.
To be closer, to have his hand there, where she was aching and yearning, hot and eager. To have him, completely. To be with him in the most passionate, intimate way.
She moaned his name again.
And then, out of nowhere, for no reason at all…he tore himself away from her. With a low groan, and a guttural, “No!” he was gone.
“Grant?” She opened her eyes to see him sitting back on his bent legs, his strong hands on his knees, face flushed, mouth swollen, eyes heavy with the same need that made her legs and arms feel weighted, that made her body so lazy and hungry and hot. She lifted yearning arms to him. “Come back here. Back here to me…”
He swore. “No. This is all wrong. I didn’t come here for this.”
“But I don’t…”
“Damn it, Steph. Listen. Listen to me.”
Stunned, punch-drunk with longing, she dragged herself to a sitting position. “I don’t understand. What’s the matter? What happened?”
He rocked back on his stocking feet and rose above her. She stared up at him, so tall and strong, glaring down at her, the leaves of the birches rustling above his head, the blue, clear sky beyond…
A sudden chill swept through her. She wrapped her arms around herself against a cold that came from deep inside. “What? Say it. Whatever it is, just please, say it. Now.”
And at last, he did. “I came out here to tell you I’m selling Clifton’s Pride.”
Chapter Five
Grant stared down into her flushed, bewildered face. Right then, there were no words to describe how thoroughly he despised himself. As he watched, the hectic color drained from her cheeks and her mouth formed a round, shocked O.
On a husk of breath, she pleaded, “No…”
He forced a nod. “Yeah. It’s true. I’m selling the ranch.”
She gaped some more, then whispered, “When?”
“I’m signing the contract today, at four-thirty.”
She swallowed, caught her upper lip between her teeth, worried it, let it go. “Today.”
“That’s right.”
“When…do we have to be out?”
“By the end of August. The new owner wants to take possession September first.”
She seemed to consider that for a moment. “Not quite two months, then… Who?”
“What?”
“Who will be the new owner?”
“Her name’s Melanie McFarlane. From out of town. She wants to make it a guest ranch.”
“A guest ranch,” she repeated as if the very words made her sick.
Grant felt like something squirming and loathsome, something you’d find buried in sour soil under a giant rock. He made himself confess the rest. “I meant to tell you Sunday,” he said, as if that mattered. As if that made any difference at all.
“Oh,” she said. “You meant to tell us. But you… forgot?”
“I was…distracted.”
Color stained her cheeks again and he knew that she knew why he hadn’t. Because he’d seen her down by the creek, seen her as a woman for the first time. Because his senses, his mind, all of him, had been filled with her. No room left to remember what he should have done.
She hitched in a hard breath. “Distracted. By me?”
“Yeah.”
“And again, today, right? It’s all my fault…”
“I didn’t say that. Of course, it’s not your fault.”
“You met me here to tell me you were selling the ranch. And I distracted you again.”
“No. Wait. You’re getting
