had no one.
Yet she still had needs.
She felt the familiar ache in her breasts beneath the weight of her arms. How long had it been since he had touched her there? Swept his tongue across her nipples? Suckled at her breasts? How long since he had lain with her, the heat of his body warming hers, his comforting weight pressing her more deeply into the bed they shared so rarely? How long since he’d buried himself in her? Filled her with his seed?
The ache spread, throbbing to life between her legs. Biting back a sob, she rolled to her side again.
Yes, she thought as the tears scalded her throat.
Rena Rankin still had needs.
Stretched out on one of the cushioned lounge chairs beside her parents’ pool, Rena crossed her legs at the ankles and took a sip of her lemonade.
“So, are you going home with him?”
Rena shook her head at her friend Megan’s question, then set her glass of lemonade on the wrought-iron table between them. “No, that wouldn’t solve anything.”
Megan drew back, looking at Rena in dismay. “Surely you aren’t planning on staying here with your parents?”
Rena cast a glance over her shoulder at the stately two-story mansion behind them with its glistening mullioned windows, the long stretch of French doors that lined the curved patio, the carefully manicured shrubs that hugged the mauve stone walls and the urns spilling with brightly colored flowers, which changed almost magically with the seasons. Wealth. Perfection. Success. Those were the images her parents’ home drew; the same images to which they had tried to make their only daughter conform. The same images she’d wanted so desperately to escape as a young, single woman. With a shudder she glanced away. “No, not permanently. Just for a few days.”
Megan stretched out a hand and took Rena’s, squeezing it within her own. “Oh, Rena,” she murmured, her eyes filled with concern, “are you sure you know what you’re doing?”
“Honestly?” At Megan’s earnest nod, Rena sighed and withdrew her hand from her friend’s. She pressed her head back against the plump cushions and stared blindly up at the clouds floating across the sky overhead. “No, but I can’t go on living with Clayton. Not with the way things are between us.”
“But you love Clayton! I know you do.”
Rena lifted a shoulder. “I thought I did. But now…I’m not sure anymore.”
“Of course you love him! And he loves you!”
“No, he doesn’t.”
“How do you know that? Has he told you that he doesn’t?”
Rena snorted indelicately. “No, but Clayton rarely says anything. Or at least, not to me.”
“Then you can’t possibly know that he doesn’t love you.”
Rena turned her head slowly to peer at Megan through the dark sunglasses that concealed eyes swollen from a night spent crying over that very actuality. “Trust me,” she replied dryly. “I know.”
Megan huffed a breath and flopped back against the cushions, folding her arms stubbornly beneath her breasts. “Well, I think he does.”
Rena sputtered a laugh. “And why would you think that? You haven’t been around Clayton or talked to him in years.”
“I was there the night you met him,” Megan reminded her. “Remember?”
Rena turned her face away. “Yes, I remember.”
“And do you also remember how you two just seemed to click?” she asked, snapping two fingers together for emphasis. “I’ve never seen chemistry like that before, nor have I since.”
Rena fluttered a hand, dismissing her friend’s opinion. “Lust. Pure and simple.”
Megan jackknifed to a sitting position. “It was not just lust!” she cried, then clamped her lips together and stole a quick glance at the house to make sure that no one had overheard her. Though no faces appeared in any of the windows, she lowered her voice, obviously concerned that Rena’s mother was hovering on the other side of the doors, as she had when they were teenagers, eavesdropping on their conversation. “Two star-crossed lovers destined to meet,” she whispered furiously to Rena. “That’s what the two of you were. One look from Clayton, one touch, and you came alive.”
Even as her friend described the event, Rena felt the leap of nerves beneath her skin, the quickening of her breath, the heat racing through her veins. She could see Clayton as he’d stood that night, alone at the edge of the dance floor, his hands braced low on his hips. The sleeves of his black Western shirt had been rolled to his elbows, exposing muscled forearms dusted with dark hair, and his black cowboy hat had been shoved back on his head, revealing the sharp angles of an incredibly handsome face.
Black. The bad guys always wear black, she remembered thinking at the time, even as she’d smiled flirtatiously at him when he’d looked her way.
Furious with herself for even thinking about Clayton and the night they’d first met, she sat up impatiently. “Lust,” she repeated stubbornly and reached for the bottle of sunscreen sitting on the table. “It was nothing but lust.”
“How can you say that?” Megan cried. “You were crazy about him!”
Frowning, Rena smeared the cream over her legs. “Crazy being the operative word.”
“Uggh,” Megan groaned, obviously frustrated by having her words twisted around. “You weren’t crazy! In fact, accepting Clayton’s invitation to dance was probably the sanest and bravest thing you’d ever done in your life.”
When Rena humphed her disagreement, Megan swung her legs over the side of the chair and snatched the bottle of sunscreen from Rena’s hand. “You listen to me, Rena Rankin,” she ordered sternly. “Up until that night, you’d lived your entire life at your parents’ direction, being the dutiful daughter, the perfect little debutante, doing exactly what you were told, never daring to veer either left or right from the path they’d mapped out for you. But with Clayton you forgot all that, and you were simply you!”
“Me?” Rena sputtered a laugh. “I was twenty-one years old, extremely naive and looking for trouble. And I found it,” she added bitterly.
“You weren’t looking for trouble.”
“Wasn’t I?” Rena asked, arching a brow above the rim of her sunglasses as she peered at her friend. “Slumming. Isn’t that what you called it that night when you suggested that the three of us go inside that country-western dance hall in Oklahoma City? Three sorority girls from the University of Oklahoma mixing and mingling with the local yokels, I believe is how you described it.”
Megan’s cheeks reddened, but she lifted her chin defensively. “Okay. So maybe my intentions weren’t totally charitable, but I was proven wrong, wasn’t I? The cowboys we met that night treated us with more respect than any of the fraternity boys ever had, didn’t they?” She didn’t wait for an answer. Didn’t seem to want one. “They were gentlemen. Treated us like ladies. And we had fun, didn’t we?”
