Jillian Hart - The Horseman

His words could have been trite and his sympathy shallow, but they weren’t. Her pain echoed on his face in tiny lines and shadows. Her sadness saddened him. Her desolation became his.

She let him hold her until there were no tears. He wiped the tears from her face with the pads of his thumbs. Erased the memory of them with a trail of tender kisses that made her wish all the harder. This man loved her truly for who she was and what she was not.

That was the way she wanted to love him. All of him. To stroke him until he reached only for her. To love him wholly, flesh to flesh, and make him a part of her. To drive this pain away with the hope of a newer, greater love.

“You need to rest, angel.”

His kissed her brow, her champion. Her savior. He lifted her to her feet as he lifted her heart. Like a phoenix rising from its ashes, born anew.

Like a new flame, she glowed when he touched her. Laid his arm around her shoulder to guide her because she couldn’t see, couldn’t tell where she was going. All that mattered was Dillon. His touch, his presence, his love like radiance warming away the shadows inside her. Every grief. Every loss. Like a new spring come to the shaded places that felt sunlight for the first time.

Dillon’s touch was the soft brush of a western wind against her grateful skin. She clung to him, to the bold heat of his kiss. Of the need they shared, the need to taste him, hold him, bind herself to this man she loved more than anything. Anything.

She wanted him with the sweetness of a new dawn, when the light was innocent and gentle. She wanted him with the bright passion of a burning sun, and melted when he sat her on the edge of the bed, splayed his hands on either side of her hips and asked the question without words.

Yes. She needed him. Like no man she’d ever needed before. She burned with it, was torn apart by it and made whole all at the same time as she loosened the button at her throat. His eyes went black. His chest rose quick and fast, and a flash of fear bolted through her like lightning in a clear sky. Brief. Lonely.

“You say the word, and I’ll stop. You hear?” Like a caress to her soul, his words swept through her.

He was already laying her back, his hands tugging at her clothes with a steady competence, so that she burned like a midday sun, exposed and naked and a little afraid.

She hated that she was afraid. He tugged her laces free and the corset gave way, and with a sweep of his fingers to her hips she was naked before him. Vulnerable. Open. And wanting to cling to him. To be a part of him. To feel him in every part of her.

It would be like that, wouldn’t it? Doubt crept in, even as he moved into the frame of sunlight from the window, burnished with gold and so awe inspiring as he stripped the shirt from his shoulders, her doubts frizzled. She craved the touch of his hand to her ribs.

On a sigh, as if she already knew how it would feel, his hand fit over her breast and stroked, squeezed, bringing a sharp, flawless pleasure.

“You are the love I’ve been waiting for all of my life,” he murmured as he stretched out naked beside her. “When I first looked at you, I knew. I would love only you.”

“I’ve never known a man like you.” She realized it was true. So good, so strong, everlasting. A real man she could trust with the deepest part of her.

“Angel, I am not finished yet.”

His kiss was tender, his touch beautiful. He drew her against him and she explored the hardness of him and the differences. He was magnificent and touching him melted her within, the way her touch melted him. Forcing a new emotion to take root within, in those vulnerable shadowed places. She opened her arms and let him in.

He moved over her, as if he were made to be there. The push of his hard, thick shaft forced her open, not roughly but inexorably, and the feel of him filling her, completely wounding her anew in her heart. A wound of deep love that hurt as it healed, that burned as it shone.

She felt his overwhelming love, the force of it, the pulse of it as he cupped her hip and showed her how to move with him. Creating a rhythm that tightened her around him like a new bud, clenching tighter and tighter against the sun. She held him so tight, and his kiss grazed her brow, her face, her lips.

Reverent, that’s what he felt. A love so huge nothing could extinguish it. Being with her like this, having her wrapped around him in every way, clinging to his shoulders, his hips, her satin heat gloving him as he pumped harder and harder, it was meant to be. Fated. He could feel it with his body, with his heart, with his soul.

Overcome, he touched her face. Oh, so beautiful. She was incredibly beautiful to him. What a lucky man he was to have her as his wife. To have her trust him and love him. His passionate, loving wife. He buried his face in her hair and moved beyond feeling when he felt her begin to break around him, the first tight pulse of her release like hot, wet silk fisting him. That she would trust him like this, surrender like this, carried him beyond words.

He drummed harder, faster, coming as she did, crying out as she did, spilling all he was into her, his love, his seed. She cherished him with kisses to his throat and the side of his face. Honored him with the graze of her fingertips across his back. Her tenderness changed him, made him better, stronger, renewed.

“I love you, Katelyn.” Breathless, resting thick and heavy inside her, he kept her against him. Touched her face. Opened his soul. “To think that I’m here with you like this. I love you so very much.”

“I love you, too.”

She’d never known anything like the gentle bliss as the passion cooled in her blood and they rested together, joined, touching. He ran his forefinger down her nose, over the rise of her lips and into the dimple at her chin. Then lower to take her breasts and tease her nipple.

Pleasure rose through her like flames to the sky, higher and higher. His mouth closed over her nipple and she arched her back to offer him more. And felt his thickness inside her swell and harden.

She’d never dreamed love could be like this. She let him love her again, sweeter this time. Slower. A joining not only of bodies but, incredibly, of hearts.

The prairie looked crisp and new and the inch from last night’s snowfall crunched beneath their shoes. Katelyn felt cherished as she walked beside Dillon, her fingers entwined with his. The closeness from their lovemaking lingered between them like a warm blanket nestling them both.

As they walked, horses rushed up to the fence line. Dillon stopped and offered pats to each mare and their peppermint rewards. He took the time to teach Katelyn their names. Beautiful, pedigreed names for the purebreds. Fitting, western ones for the pintos and Appaloosas. Finally they moved on.

Snow broke from the sky above, tiny, frosted flakes that fell straight from heaven. They clung to Katelyn’s hair and eyelashes, and sneaked down the back of her collar to make her shiver.

Dillon drew her close to mumble in her ear. “I could always warm you up.”

“Oh? And how would you do that?”

“By lifting those skirts of yours, my sweet, and making your blood burn.” He nipped her earlobe, making pleasure skid along her nerve endings. “You just say the word, and I’ll be happy to oblige you.”

“Happy to? I suppose there’s nothing you gain from the experience.”

“Only the satisfaction of pleasuring you. I live to serve you, my love.”

“Aren’t you a true gentleman? Putting a lady’s needs above your own.”

“I sure hope so. You tell me.”

“Well, I may need you to satisfy me again. Practice makes perfect.”

“That’s not true, because you are already perfection.” He brushed a few flyaway curls from her eyes. She leaned into the affectionate stroke of his finger-tips, loving his tender strength.

What a man. She floated with love for him. Were her feet touching the ground? She was certain they weren’t, that he made her walk on air. Her body felt well loved, a new and wonderful sensation. Desire for him, to have him inside her, coiled within her.

How could she already want him? Yet her body was ready for him, wet and trembling and alive. The way only he could make her.

“Hey, pretty girl.” Dillon welcomed the gray mare with his hands, holding her big, comely head against his chest as he stroked her cheeks and jaw.

The mare he’d rescued, who’d been beaten. Katelyn held out her hand and the Arabian shied, stepping back, skin flicking over her taut, powerful muscles.

“Easy, girl,” Dillon said, switching to his grandfather’s language, the lilting music speaking to the mare’s soul and calming her.

Katelyn saw the harsh scars raked into the animal’s back and rump. At least three dozen of them, ugly and ragged. The poor thing. Those were made by the angry lash of a bullwhip, reminding her that all of these horses were unwanted or abused or homeless.

Was that why Dillon had chosen her? Doubt fluttered in her chest. Did he love her? Or was she someone to save? Someone who needed rescuing and sheltering? Like these mares.

Somehow that made his love for her less. Made her unsure as he released his hold on her to dig more peppermint from his jacket pockets.

“Hello there, Spirited One.” Dillon held two treats, one in each hand. “He’s angry because I’ve ignored him. I usually come see him several times throughout the morning. Today, I had to buy more peppermint. But going to town isn’t the reason I’m late.”

He tossed her a sideways glance and blushed. The memory of his lovemaking sizzled through her, making her hot when she ought to be freezing.