Linda never wanted to share anything or do any work. I thought it was just because she was young, but I can see that wasn't it. She was the same age then as Mariah is now. Linda was just spoiled. Mariah may have come here looking for room and board – and a crack at Mad Jack's mine – but at least she's not afraid to work for it.
Best of all, Mariah doesn't whine.
No. Not best of all. What was best about Mariah, Cash conceded, was her incandescent sensuality. After Linda, he had never found it difficult to control himself where women were concerned. Mariah was different. He wanted her more, not less, each time. It was just as well that he was going to Boulder. He needed distance from Mariah's fire, distance and the coolness of mind to remember that a woman didn't have to be spoiled in order to manipulate a man. She simply had to be clever enough to allow him to deceive himself.
Cash was still reminding himself of how it had been with Linda when he let himself into the old house in the hour before dawn. He knew he should be on the road, driving away, putting miles between himself and Mariah. Yet he couldn't bring himself to leave without saying goodbye to her.
The front door of the old house closed softly behind Cash. An instant later he heard a whispering, rushing sound and felt Mariah's soft warmth wrapping around him, holding him with a woman's surprising strength. His arms came around her in a hard hug that lifted her feet off the floor.
Her tears were hot against his neck.
"Mariah?"
She shuddered and held on to Cash until she could trust her voice. "I couldn't sleep. I heard you loading the Jeep. I thought you weren't even going to say goodbye to me. Please don't be angry with me over Nevada. I like him but it's nothing to what I feel about you. I-"
But Cash's mouth was over hers, sealing off her words. The taste of him swept through her, making her tremble. His arms shifted subtly, both molding and supporting her body, stroking her over his hard length, telling her without a word how perfectly they fit together, hard against soft, key against lock, male and female, hunger and fulfillment.
It took an immense amount of willpower for Cash to end the kiss short of taking Mariah down to the floor and burying himself in her, ending the torment that raked him with claws of fire.
"Don't leave me," Mariah whispered when Cash lowered her feet back to the floor. "Not yet. Hold me for just a little longer. Please? I – oh, Cash, it's so cold without you."
She felt the tremor that went through Cash, heard his faint groan, and then the world tilted as he picked her up once more. Moments later he put her on the bed, grabbed the covers and pulled them up beneath her chin. She struggled against the confining sheet and comforter, trying to get her arms free, but it was impossible.
"Warm enough?" he asked. "I don't want you getting sick." His voice was too deep, too thick, telling of the heavy running of his blood. "You didn't get much sleep last night, I couldn't keep my hands off you in the pool, it was a long ride back and then you cooked a meal for twelve."
"Carla did most of the work and-"
"Bull. I was watching, honey."
"-and I loved your hands on me in the pool," Mariah said quickly, talking over Cash's voice. "I love your mouth. I love your body. I love-"
His mouth came down over hers again, ending the husky flow of words that were like tiny tongues of fire licking over him.
"I shouldn't have taken you this morning," Cash said when he managed to tear himself away from Mariah's sweet, responsive mouth. "Damn it, honey, you're not used to having a man yet, and you make me so hard and hungry."
"The pool must have magic healing properties," Mariah whispered, looking up at Cash with wide golden eyes. In the vague golden illumination cast by the nightlight, Cash was little more than a dense man-shadow, a deep voice and powerful hands holding her imprisoned within the soft cocoon of bed covers. "And when I couldn't sleep tonight I took a long soak in the tub. I'm not sore, not even from the ride back. If you don't believe it, touch me. You'll see that I'm telling the truth. I know you want me, Cash. I felt it when you hugged me. Touch me. Then you'll know I want you, too."
"Mariah," he whispered.
Cash kissed her again and again, tiny, fierce kisses that told of his restraint and need. When she made soft sounds of response and encouragement, he deepened the kiss. As their tongues caressed, hunger ripped through him, loosening his hold on the bedclothes for a few moments.
It was all Mariah needed. She kicked aside the soft, enfolding covers even as she reached for Cash. He groaned when he saw her elegant, naked legs and the cotton nightshirt that barely came below her hips. Then she took his hand in hers and began smoothing it down her body.
He could have pulled away and they both knew it. He was far stronger than she was, more experienced, more able to control the hot currents of hunger that coursed through his body. But Mariah's abandoned sensuality disarmed him completely. When her breasts tightened and peaked visibly beneath cloth, he remembered how it felt to hold her in his mouth, shaping and caressing her while cries of pleasure shivered from her lips.
Even before Mariah guided Cash's hand to the sultry well of her desire, he suspected he was lost. When he touched the liquid heat that waited for him, he knew he was. He tried not to trace the soft, alluring folds and failed. He skimmed them again, probing delicately, wishing that his profession hadn't left his fingertips so scarred and callused. She deserved to be caressed by something as silky and unmarked as her own body.
"Baby?" Cash whispered. "Are you sure?"
The answer he received was a broken sound of pleasure and a sensual melting that took his doubts and his breath away. When he started to lift his hand, Mariah's fingers tightened over his wrist, trying to hold him.
"Cash," Mariah said urgently, "don't leave yet. Please stay with me for a little more. I-"
"Hush, honey," Cash said, kissing away Mariah's words. "I'm not going far." He laughed shakily. "I couldn't walk out of here right now if I had to. Don't you know what you do to me?"
"No," she whispered. "I only know what you do to me. I've never felt anything close to it. I didn't even know it was possible to feel so much. It's like I've been living at night all my life and then the sun finally came up."
The words were more arousing than any caress Cash had ever received. His hands shook with the force of the hunger pouring through him.
Mariah watched while Cash stripped away his clothes with careless, powerful motions that were very different from the tender caresses he had given to her just moments before. The nebulous glow of the tiny night-light turned Cash's skin to gold and the hair on his body to a dark, shimmering bronze. Each movement he made was echoed by the black velvet glide of shadows over his muscular body.
Cash watched Mariah as he kicked aside the last of his clothes and stood naked before her. Mariah's eyes were heavy lidded, the color of gold, shining, and they worshiped all of him, even the full, hard evidence of his desire. Still looking at him, she reached for the bottom button on her nightshirt with fingers that trembled.
Cash rested one knee on the mattress, making it give way beneath his weight. One long finger traced from the instep of Mariah's foot, up the calf, behind the knee, then slowly up the inside of her thighs. When her leg flexed in response, he smiled slowly.
"That's it, little one. Show me you want me," Cash whispered. "Make room for me between those beautiful legs."
Mariah's long legs shifted and separated. He followed each movement with dark, consuming eyes and light caresses. Slowly he knelt between her legs, watching her, seeing the same sensual tension in her that had taken his body and drawn it tight on wires of fire.
For a moment Cash didn't move, couldn't move, frozen by the beauty of Mariah's body and the trust implicit in her vulnerable position. Slowly, irresistibly, his hands pushed aside her unbuttoned nightshirt, smoothing it down over her shoulders and arms, stopping at her wrists, for he had become distracted by the rose-tipped, creamy invitation of her breasts.