Here and Then by Linda Lael Miller

Author:Linda Lael Miller
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Harlequin
Published: 1992-10-26T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Rue hesitated in the doorway, fighting a disconcerting urge to fling herself at Farley in unqualified surrender. She’d always found other men highly resistible, no matter how famous or accomplished they might be, but this self-educated nineteenth-century marshal could send her pulse careening out of control with a look, a simple touch or a few audacious words.

“Are you sure it would be wise for us to sleep together?” she finally managed in a thin voice. “After all, we don’t exactly know where our relationship is headed.”

“Relationship,” Farley repeated with a thoughtful frown, stretching out on the bed. At least he was comfortable. Rue was a mass of warm aches and quivering contradictions. “That’s a peculiar-sounding word. If it means what I think it does, well, I don’t believe all of that has to be worked out tonight. Do you?”

Rue ran the tip of her tongue nervously over dry lips. “No, but—”

Farley arched one eyebrow. “But…?” he prompted, not unkindly.

Rue hugged herself and unconsciously took a step closer. “I’m not sure you’re going to understand this, being a man, but when we made love, I opened myself up to you in a way that I never had before. There was no place for me to hide, if you know what I mean, and intimacy of that kind—”

He rose, graceful in his bath towel, and came to stand directly in front of her. “Did I hurt you?” he asked.

Rue shook her head. “No,” she croaked after a long moment of silence. “It’s just that I felt so vulnerable.”

Gently, Farley took Rue’s hand, raised it to his mouth, brushed the knuckles with his lips. “I’ll make you a bargain,” he said. “If I’m loving you and you get scared, all you have to do is say stop, and I will. No questions, no arguments.”

Gazing into Farley’s eyes, Rue knew he was telling the truth. Color pooled in her cheeks. “You know as well as I do,” she told him with a rickety smile, “that once you start kissing and touching me, stopping will be the last thing on my mind.”

He eased her to the side of the bed, pulled the nightgown off over her head and tossed it aside. Then he feasted on her with his eyes, and that alone made Rue feel desirable and womanly.

Her breasts seemed to swell under Farley’s admiring gaze, the nipples protruding, eager. Her thighs felt softer and warmer, as if preparing to cradle his hard weight, and the most secret reaches of her womanhood began a quiet, heated throbbing.

When Farley spread splayed fingers through her freshly combed hair and bent her head back for his kiss, Rue gave an involuntary whimper. She was terrified, and the sensation of his mouth against hers was something like hurtling down the face of Mount Rainier on a runaway toboggan.

Rue felt Farley’s towel fall away as he gripped her bottom, raised her slightly and pressed her against him, never slackening the kiss. Most of her wits had already deserted her,

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