"You mean he's not home yet?"
"No," she said, embarrassed by how breathless her voice sounded. Honey flushed at the intent look on Jesse's face as it suddenly dawned on him that they had the place to themselves. She swallowed hard and said, "Where have you been all day?"
"Doing business for the Texas Rangers," he admitted. "But I'm all yours now."
The leer on his face made it plain what he hoped she would do with him.
Honey was tempted to start a fight, or do whatever else was necessary to make Jesse angry enough to leave her alone. On the other hand, she was also very much aware of the sensual lure he had thrown out to her. Their time together was coming to a close. It was hard to say no when he was here, wanting her, desiring her, with his eyes and his voice and his body.
He reached out and tugged on the waistband of her jeans. The top button popped free.
"Don't even think it," she warned.
"You can read my mind?"
"Enough to know you're crazy."
"Probably certifiable," he admitted. "But if you don't tell, I won't."
He made growling sounds and bit her neck, sending a frisson of fire through her veins.
She grabbed Jesse's face to try to make him stop whatever tantalizing thing he was doing to her throat with his tongue, but he caught her hands and forced them behind her. Twining their fingers together, he used them to pull her between his widespread legs where his arousal was evident.
"Jesse," she protested with a breathless laugh. "We can't. It's broad daylight."
"There's no one to see," he said, thrusting against her and causing her to groan as her body responded to the urgency of his.
She was running out of excuses for him not to do what she so desperately wanted him to do. "Jack might come home."
"Then we'll just have to go where he won't find us," Jesse murmured conspiratorially.
Honey thought he meant her bedroom, but he obviously had other ideas. She gasped when he threw her over his shoulder and headed for the barn.
"Not the barn!" she hooted.
"Why not the barn?" he said with a grin.
"Hay itches."
He stopped and rearranged her in his arms so he could see her face. "Sounds like you speak from experience."
The color rose on Honey's cheeks. When Jesse laughed she hid her face against his throat.
He murmured in her ear, "If you feel any itches anywhere I'll be glad to scratch them."
Honey giggled like a schoolgirl. She felt so carefree! If only it could always be like this, laughter and loving, with no thought of the future to spoil it. Honey nibbled on Jesse's ear and heard him hiss in a breath of air.
"Keep that up, woman, and we won't make it to the barn," he warned.
Honey was feeling in a dangerous mood. She teased his ear with her tongue, tracing the shell-like shape of it. She shrieked when Jesse teas-ingly threatened to drop her.
At the barn door he stopped and stood her before him so he could look at her.
When Honey caught sight of his face she knew she was playing with fire. His dark eyes were heavy-lidded, his features taut with desire. His nostrils flared and his hands tightened on her flesh. Her whole body tensed in response to his obvious sexual hunger.
Her fingertips caressed his cheekbones and slid up from his temple into the thick black hair at his nape. "I want you, Jesse."
Her words were like a match on tinder. Jesse's mouth came down on hers, his tongue thrusting in a mirror image of that age-old dance between men and women. Her fingers clutched at his hair, forcing his hat off his head. She grabbed hold of him as though to keep from flying off into the unknown. For nothing Jesse did to her from then on was like anything that had ever happened to her before.
His mouth found her nipple through her thin cotton shirt, rousing her to passion. His hand slid down the front of her jeans and cupped the heat and heart of her. He urged her hand down to the hard bulge that threatened the seams of his Levi's. He thrust against her, his desire a stronger aphrodisiac than any shaman's love potion.
They stood just inside the barn door, and Jesse molded them together belly to belly as he backed her out of the sunlight and into the shadows. "It's time you and I had a talk about what happens when you tease a man," Jesse rasped, pressing her up against the barn wall with his body.
He insinuated his thigh between her legs and lifted her so she could feel the heat and pressure of his flesh against that most sensitive of feminine places. Meanwhile he cupped a breast in one hand while the other captured her nape to hold her still for the onslaught of his mouth and the invasion of his tongue.
"Honey," he rasped. "I can't get enough of you, the feel of you, the taste of you."
Honey was overwhelmed. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't move. She could only respond to the sensations that assaulted her. Her knees collapsed and Jesse had to hold her upright.
Abruptly he left her and she leaned against the rough wooden walls, legs outstretched, while he grabbed a clean saddle blanket and spread it hurriedly over the fresh, crackling straw in an empty stall at the back of the barn.
She felt his urgency as he returned to lift her into his arms and carry her to the blanket, laying her down carefully before mantling her with his body.
Honey looked up into eyes that were narrowed in concentration on her, fierce, dark eyes that should have frightened her but only made her wild with anticipation.
Slowly, slowly, Jesse began unbuttoning her shirt. His mouth caressed her flesh as he exposed it, until he reached the button on her Levi's. The button hardly made a sound as it fell free, but her zipper grated noisily as he slid it down. His mouth followed where his hands had led and soon he was nuzzling at the very apex of her thighs.
Honey reached for whatever part of him she could grasp, but when he nipped her through her silken panties her nails curved into the muscles of his back.
"Jesse!"
He sat up to pull off her boots and then his own. She yanked off her socks and then his, grinning at the sight of his long naked feet. He started to unsnap his shirt, but she stopped him.
"Let me."
She offered him the same enjoyment he had given her, exposing his bronze skin one snap at a time and caressing it with her lips and tongue. Intrigued by his distended nipples she forayed across his chest to nibble gently on one.
His whole body tensed, and he held himself motionless while she tested his control He didn't last long. A moment later she found herself flat on her back, Jesse astride her.
"Play with fire and you can get burned, woman."
He unsnapped the front clasp of her bra and brushed it aside as he took one of her nipples in his mouth to tease it with his tongue. Honey arched upward with her hips and encountered the hardness of his arousal.
She grasped his buttocks to pull him close and spread her legs to accommodate him more fully. Jesse returned the pressure as she gently rubbed herself against him.
Abruptly Jesse freed himself from her grasp and began stripping her. She was equally urgent in her efforts to undress him until moments later they stared at each other in the filtered sunlight.
"God, you're beautiful," he said reverently.
Honey felt herself flushing with pleasure at the compliment. She knew he wasn't merely mouthing the words. His delight was mirrored in his eyes.
"I'm glad I please you."
The gentle touch of his mouth on hers was like a paean to a goddess. He honored her. He revered her. He desired her. His lips and mouth and tongue adored her. The kisses that began at her mouth continued downward to her throat, found their way to her breasts, then to her belly and beyond.
Honey stiffened and reached out a hand to grip his shoulder. She hadn't expected this. She wasn't sure whether she wanted it.
Jesse raised his eyes to hers. "I want to taste all of you," he said.
In all the years they had been married, Cale had never loved her this way. It was the most intimate of kisses. And it required complete trust. Jesse was aware of that, and he awaited her consent. Honey was wired as tight as a bowstring, anxious to please him, afraid she wouldn't, afraid of the unknown. Of that forbidden pleasure.