Her breath stopped. Every nerve ending in her body was listening to his insolent, erotic words, and increasing in sensitivity.
“I knew a woman once who could come just by having a man play with her breasts. Do you think you could do that?”
She tried to shut out his words.
“Helen,” he murmured in a cracked voice, betraying his out-of-control state, too. “Do you know what I’d really like?”
“No, don’t tell me.”
He grinned at her vehemence. “I’d like you to drop your reins for a moment and look at me. Then, while you’re holding eye contact, I’d like you to lift your own breasts. And touch the tips. Just for a second. That’s all.”
Helen was shocked. This time, she really was.
The most shocking thing of all was that she was tempted.
Helen kicked her horse into a gallop before she actually embarrassed herself, and Rafe, by complying.
One time he caught up with her and asked, “I don’t suppose you’d consider riding naked?”
“Get real!” she snapped.
After another hour, they veered off the road and up a steep mountain. Thunder had been rumbling in the distance for some time, and they needed to set up camp before the storm broke. Finally, they came to a wide overhanging outcrop of rock.
“This is the kind of place that often has some caves,” Rafe conjectured aloud. “Stay here while I explore.” He returned shortly and motioned for her to follow. “It’s perfect. Just enough room for us and the horses.”
While Rafe went out to gather firewood, Helen began rubbing down the horses at the back of the small, low-ceilinged cave. With the dampness of the “room” and the breeze from the coming storm, a definite chill hung on the air. Or is it my fear of what’s to come? In any case, a large fire would be welcome.
She started the kindling in a space close to the cave opening so the smoke could escape. Meanwhile, Rafe went in and out five more times, carrying armloads of broken limbs, which he stacked to the side. By the last trip, he was soaking wet from the pounding rain.
“Helen, see if you can find soap in one of the saddlebags.”
She looked up from the fire she was feeding with pieces of kindling. On an indrawn breath, she asked, “What are you doing?”
Rafe already had his boots and socks off, along with his soaking shirt. Water ran down his face and chest from his hair. He was about to unzip his pants.
He chuckled, apparently understanding her alarm. “Unlike you, I didn’t get to bathe tonight at the hotel. I’m going to wash in the rain.”
“Oh.” She found the soap and handed it to him. Oh, Lord, he was already down to his black boxers. The light from the fire highlighted his sleek body, wide shoulders, hard abs, flat stomach and narrow hips, beautifully long legs, and narrow feet.
“Want to join me?” he asked huskily, intensely aware of her scrutiny. And not at all self-conscious of his near-nudity.
Shaking her head, she kept her eyes averted, disconcerted by her reaction to him. I’m thirty-four years old and getting flustered by a man. I’m an Army major, for heaven’s sake, surrounded by men. Why should this one affect me so?
She heard him step out of his shorts and pad toward the cave entrance. Just before he went out, he said, “I’ll be right back.” A heavy pause ensued during which she refused to look up, and he added, “Have the blankets ready for us, Helen. I need you… real bad.”
She did look up then, but all she saw was the back of his nude body moving out into the driving rain.
Rafe was gone for a long while, and every few moments, as she built the fire higher and higher, Helen glanced over to the blankets piled in the corner. She knew that Rafe was giving her time, that if she actually made a bed for them, it would be her answer. He was throwing the choice in her lap as to whether they made love or not.
Should I? The mere question flicked a switch in her already overly aroused body. She wanted to. Yes, she definitely wanted to.