He laughed before falling down beside her and grabbing a handful of hair. He wound it around his fist, pulling on it inexorably until she was forced to roll against him. Not quite sure how it came about, she discovered herself atop his chest, her legs straddling him.
“Jared!” she exclaimed, trying to disengage herself from the arms that clamped across her back. Her struggles only widened his grin. He risked taking one arm away from her back to cup her head in his hand and force her face down to receive his burning kiss.
At last, she pulled away from him and sat up. He was dazzled by the breasts that were enticingly suspended in front of him. With an index finger, he skimmed across the tops of her breasts, circled them leisurely, then teased the tips. He watched her immediate response in awe, intrigued and bewitched.
“Jared, I… oh… what do I… please…”
“Do whatever feels right,” he said before he lifted his head and raked his tongue over her distended nipples.
“I—”
“Whatever feels right, Lauren,” he breathed as his hands slid down her ribs to settle on her hips. His thumbs met at the dark nest in the center of her abdomen and impressed hypnotic circles onto it. Impossible to ignore, the hard shaft pressed up into her. His hands stroked her thighs as she rose to her knees, poised over him, then impaled herself on his strength.
“My God,” he hissed through gritted teeth. His head tossed on the pillow. She rocked upon him, moving up and down, reveling in the feel of him inside her. She combed her fingers through the mat of hair on his chest, teasing the hard brown nipples. When she grew tired, she lay upon his chest. Her lips sought out the sensitive areas of his face and neck, nibbling, caressing them with light kisses.
His hands clasped the backs of her thighs even as his fingers stroked the moist folds between them. Neither could stand any more, and the eruption came. He filled her with the lava of his loins, which seemed to flow into her veins and scorch each nerve ending until it exploded under the onslaught.
Afterward, she knelt beside him, bathing the residue of their lovemaking from his body with a warm, damp towel.
He yawned again as she dropped the towel to the floor. Laughing as she brushed her lips across his, she asked, “Bored again?”
He smiled. “No, I’m sleepy,” he confessed. “Come here.” He pulled her down deep into the covers and snuggled against her. The hair on his chest tickled her back and his arm weighed on her waist. She moved closer still. He kissed her shoulder before they both slipped into dreamless sleep. Dreams had ceased to be necessary.
* * *
Jared knelt in front of the fireplace coaxing the dying embers into a red glow, adding small logs until they flared and ignited. He had wrapped the fur blanket around him to ward off the chill. Lauren could see no light seeping in around the edges of the drapes. It was after nightfall.
She took up her discarded dressing gown and slipped into it as she stepped from the bed. Her bare feet touched the cold floor and she scurried to the hearth and squatted down beside Jared.
“Hey, you’re going to freeze. Why didn’t you stay in bed?” He ran his hands briskly up and down her arms to warm her.
“Because you weren’t there,” she replied honestly, her eyes reflecting the glowing fire. Impulsively she kissed him on the lips.
He wrapped his arms around her and drew her down on the rug in front of the hearth. Staring into the flames, neither spoke for a moment. He stroked the length of her hair absently while his chin rested on the crown of her head.
“Jared?”
“Hm?”
“You can’t imagine how terrified I was of you the first time I saw you.”
He pulled his head back. “Terrified of me?” he asked with mock-dismay. There was a glint of mischief in his eyes.
“You were sprawled out, unconscious, in the back of that wagon. I had never been near a man who was so… virile… threatening… I don’t know. You intrigued me, though. And that day you sneaked into my room, I was afraid I was going to faint.”
He laughed quietly. “I was intrigued by you, too, though up until then I hadn’t even seen you. Pepe told me later how I fell against you most ignominiously.” He chuckled and hugged her tight. “I wanted to put you on the defensive. You were just as threatening to me.”
“I? Threatening? How?” She stared at him incredulously.
Jared reached up to the small table where he had emptied his pockets the night before and picked up a cigar. He struck a match against the stones of the fireplace and lit the cheroot, drawing on it slowly and blowing the smoke over their heads.
Now was the time. She had to know.
“I resented you like hell, Lauren. Not you specifically, but any woman suddenly thrust upon me the way you were. The night Ben died, we had a fierce argument. I don’t think he intended to tell me his plan for our marriage at first. He started the lecture by reminding me of my responsibilities and warning me that my indiscretions would eventually catch up with me. ‘You’re a man now, Jared. It’s time you settled down and started behaving like an adult and not some wild bronco bent on destroying yourself and everything I’m leaving you as a legacy.’”
Jared drew once more on the cigar and flicked the gray ash at its tip into the fireplace. Lauren didn’t speak. She wanted to know what had transpired that night, why Jared had hated her for so long.
“Mostly out of belligerence, I countered every point he made, until he lost his temper and hit me with both barrels. Our houseguest, whom I had been commissioned to fetch off the train in Austin, was the woman he had selected for me to marry. Since I had dragged my heels, he had taken matters into his own hands, and provided me with a wife. He stressed the fact that you knew nothing of this when I referred to you as an opportunist, along with some very ungentlemanly epithets.”