He wouldn’t have tolerated it from anyone else. But Lisa, already, was under his thick skin. “I needed someone to talk to, I guess,” he confessed. “Eb lived here, and he and I go back a long way. He’d never married, but he knew what it was to lose people. I could talk to him.”
“You can talk to me, too,” she pointed out. “I never tell what I know.”
He smiled at her. “Who would you tell it to?” he drawled. “You don’t have close friends, do you?”
She shrugged. “All my friends got married right out of high school. They’ve got kids of their own and, until fairly recently, I didn’t even date much. I’ve been the odd one out most of my life. Other girls wanted to talk about boys, and I wanted to talk about organic gardening. I love growing things.”
“We’ll have to lay out a big garden spot for you next spring. You can grow all sorts of stuff.”
“That would be nice. I’ve got a compost pile,” she added brightly. “It’s full of disgusting things that will produce terrific tomatoes next summer.”
“I like cattle, but I’m not much of a gardener.”
“It’s a lot of work, but you get lovely things to eat, and they aren’t poisoned by pesticides, either.” She glanced out at the long, flat dark horizon. “I guess you aren’t big on people who don’t like to use chemicals.”
“Haven’t you heard?” he chuckled. “I go to cattlemen’s association meetings with J. D. Langley and the Tremayne brothers.”
“Oh, my,” she said, because she’d heard about the uproar at some of those gatherings, where the Tremaynes had been in fistfights over pesticides and growth hormones. Their position against such things was legendary.
“I enjoy a good fight,” he added. “I use bugs for pest control and organic fertilizer on my hay and corn and soybean crops.” He glanced her way. “Guess where I get the fertilizer?”
“Recycled grass, huh?” she asked, and waited for him to get the point.
He threw back his head and roared. “That’s one way of describing it.”
“I have some of that, too, and I use it in my garden. I think it works even better than the chemical ones.”
The subject of natural gardening and cattle raising supplied them with topics all the way to Houston, and Lisa thoroughly enjoyed herself. Here was a man who thought like she did. Walt had considered her organic approach akin to insanity.
The parking lot at the arts center was full. Cy managed to find one empty space about half a city block away.
“Now that’s a full house,” he remarked as he helped her down from the vehicle and repositioned her coat around her shoulders. “This thing sure is soft. Is it wool?” he asked, smoothing over it with his fingers.
“It’s a microfiber,” she told him. “It’s very soft and warm. The nights are pretty chilly lately, especially for south Texas.”
“The weather’s crazy everywhere.” He nudged a long, loose curl from her braided hair behind her ear, making her heart race with the almost sensual movement of his lean fingers. “I thought you might wear your hair loose.”
“It’s…difficult to keep in place when it’s windy,” she said, sounding and feeling breathless.
His fingers teased the curl and slowly dropped to her soft neck, tracing imaginary lines down it to her throat. He could feel her pulse go wild under his touch, hear the soft, broken whip of her breath at his chin. It had been far too long since he’d had anything warm and feminine this close to him. Restraints that had been kept in place with sheer will were crumbling just at the proximity. He moved a full step closer, so that her body was right up against him in the opening of her coat. His hands were both at the back of her neck now, caressing the silky skin below her nape.
“I haven’t touched a woman since my wife died,” he said in a faintly thick tone, his voice unusually deep in the silence. The distant sound of cars and horns and passing radios faded into the background.
She looked up, straight into his green eyes in the glow from a streetlight, and her heart raced. That look on his face was unfamiliar to her, despite her brief intimacy with her late husband. She had a feeling that Cy knew a lot more than her husband ever had about women.
Cy’s thumbs edged around to tease up and down her long, strained neck. Her vulnerability made him feel taller, more masculine than ever. He wanted to protect her, care for her, watch over her. These were new feelings. Before, his relationships to women had been very physical. Lisa made him hungry in a different way.
She parted her lips to speak and he put a thumb gently over them.
“It’s too soon,” he said, anticipating her protest. “Of course it is. But I’m starving to death for a woman’s soft mouth under my lips. Feel.” He drew one of her hands to his shirt under the jacket and pressed it hard against the thunderous beat of his heart.
She was more confused than ever. This was totally unfamiliar territory. Walt had never said anything so blatantly vulnerable to her, not even when they were most intimate.
His free hand went around her waist and drew her slowly closer, pressing her to him as his body reacted powerfully to the touch of her soft warmth. He lifted an eyebrow and smiled wickedly at her frozen expression.
“Why, Mrs. Monroe, you’re blushing,” he chided softly.
“You wicked man…!”
His nose brushed lazily against hers in a tender nuzzling. “I’ve probably forgotten more about women than Walt ever knew in the first place,” he said. “You don’t act like a woman who’s ever known satisfaction.”
That was so close to the truth that it hurt. She stiffened.
He lifted his head and searched her eyes. His own narrowed. He moved her lazily against him and felt her breath catch, felt her hands cling to his lapels as if she were drowning.
“Oh…no,” she choked as a surge of pure delight worked its way up her spine. She hated herself. Her husband was only buried two weeks ago…!
While she was thinking of ways to escape, and fighting her own hunger, Cy backed her very gently against the big utility vehicle and edged one of her long legs out of his way to bring them into more intimate contact.
“This is the most glorious thing a man and a woman can do together,” he murmured as his mouth lowered to hers. “He cheated you. I won’t. Open your mouth.”
Her lips parted on a shocked little gasp, and his mouth ground into them, parting them. He wasn’t hesitant or tentative. He demanded, devoured. His mouth was a weapon, feinting, thrusting, biting, and all the while her body rippled with a thousand stings of new pleasure as she clung hard to his strength. Sensations she’d never known piled one upon the other until a hoarse moan tore out of her strained throat and went up into his mouth.
Another minute and he knew he wouldn’t be able to pull back at all. He had her hips pinned with his, and his body ached for satisfaction.
With a rough curse he dragged his head up and moved away from her. She looked
