WAS SHECRAZY?
Lily stared at her reflection in the bathroom mirror, at her carefully applied makeup and just-washed hair, tumbling in loose curls around her face the way it always did if she didn’t tame it with gel. In the kitchen, Hal and Tess were chatting happily as they cleared away the supper dishes.
Neither one of them had murmured a word of complaint when she’d served them tacos made with soybean crumbles, a meat substitute she’d bought on a quick run to the store after Tyler left.
She’d pressed the red polka-dot sundress as soon as she got back from shopping, and told her father and Tess she was meeting Tyler for a drink over at Skivvie’s and might be home late.
Now here she was, all dolled-up and hot to trot.
Again.
She was crazy, she decided. She’d basically thrown herself at Tyler Creed, invited him to have his way with her in the old cemetery, of all places, and pregnancy was an issue.
Along with the soybean crumbles, she’d picked up a box of condoms, blushing as she paid for them at the checkout counter, praying the clerk wouldn’t hold the box up for everybody to see and loudly ask for a price-check.
The woman who had the spontaneous orgasm in aisle two the other day needs condoms, she’d imagined the woman bellowing into the PA system.
None of that had happened, of course. The clerk, a nice middle-aged lady with thick glasses and the name Connie stitched onto her vest, had simply rung up Lily’s purchases and told her to have a good day.
The condoms, Lily reminded herself firmly, as she left the bathroom to face her family, were proof that she still had a few tattered shreds of sanity left.
“You look pretty, Mom,” Tess said innocently, admiring the dress.
“Yes,” Hal agreed, and though his expression indicated that he’d like to add to that brief comment, he refrained.
Bless him.
“Thanks.” Lily took her purse and the keys to her rental car from the counter. That afternoon, she’d made plans to drop the Taurus off in Missoula and then fly on to Chicago from there. Tess would be able to spend a few days with Eloise, while Lily emptied her desk at work, made arrangements to lease or sell the condo and packed up some things she’d need when they all returned to Stillwater Springs.
Hal had agreed to make the trip, too, probably well aware that Lily had asked him along so she could keep an eye on his food intake and make sure he took his medicine on time. Of course the idea would have to be cleared with his doctors first, but he didn’t seem to anticipate any problem there.
The flight out would be easy enough, barring the always-possible airline snafus, and if the drive back to Montana proved too tiring for him, they could always stop somewhere along the way and buy him a plane ticket.
He and Tess had immediately high-fived each other and shouted, in comical unison, “Road trip!”
“One way,” Lily reminded them.
They’d be gone two weeks at the longest, allowing time to do all the things that needed doing and drive home again at a sensible pace.
Maybe by going away, she could get some perspective where Tyler was concerned. Stop wanting to jump the man’s bones every time she got within a five-mile radius of him.
Fat chance. After being away from him that long, she’d probably be doing well just to slow down long enough to drop Tess and Hal off at the house before she raced off over several bumpy country roads to find Tyler and screw him silly on the spot.
The prospect flooded her face with heat all over again, heat her dad clearly noticed, though thank God, Tess didn’t.
“I’ll just walk your mom out to her car,” Hal told Tess mildly. “You finish loading the dishwasher, and then I’ll beat you at a game of checkers.”
“You mean I’ll beat you,” Tess responded. “Just like the last time we played.”
Hal chuckled at that, and even though Lily gave him a look that said she could get to the Taurus just fine on her own, thank you very much, he put a fatherly hand to the small of her back and steered her out onto the porch and over the grass to the car. He didn’t say anything at all until Lily had unlocked the Taurus and he’d opened the driver’s-side door for her.
“Try to keep the dress clean, Lily,” he said, with kindly amusement. “It’ll be pretty obvious what you’ve been up to if you have to wash it and hang it on the clothesline again so soon.”
Lily plunked herself into the car seat, took a couple of jabs at the ignition with the key before she managed to hit her mark. “Thanks for bringing that up, Dad,” she said. “As if I’m not embarrassed enough already.”
“You’re a grown woman,” Hal reminded her. “If you want to spend the night with Tyler Creed, or anybody else, that’s your business. No need to be embarrassed.”
“Now you’re going to warn me to be careful, right?”
“Already did that,” Hal answered lightly. “And, anyway, I think maybe you’ve been a little too careful, up to now.” He paused, leaned in when she buzzed the window down. “What I’m trying to say, Lily, in my own awkward way, is that it’s okay to cut loose a little. Stay out all night if you want to. Tess and I will be just fine.”
Lily swallowed. Nodded.
Hal smiled. “And thanks for calling me ‘Dad’ just now. I like the sound of that.”
“I’ve got my cell phone,” Lily said, wanting to look away from the earnest love she saw in her father’s eyes, but unable to do so. “It’s all charged, and I wrote the number on a sticky-note—”
“Lily, just go.”
“If you need anything—anything at all—”
“Go.”
A nervous little chuckle erupted from Lily’s throat. “We’re not really going to Skivvie’s,” she confessed, in a near whisper. “I just said that to throw you off.”
Hal grinned again. “Didn’t work,” he said. Then he stepped back, so she could drive away into the waiting night, headed for a rendezvous a smarter woman would have avoided.
* * *
TYLER WAITED near the cemetery gate, leaning back against his truck with his arms folded. He was going for casual, appearance-wise, but when Lily zoomed in, the headlights of her car splashing over him as she parked, his heart pounded and his mouth went dry and he nearly lost what little cool he’d been able to muster up.
He realized, as he pushed off from the truck, that he hadn’t really expected her to show up at all. One of these days, she was bound to come to her senses, remember that he was a Creed and upload all the memories of that summer when he’d broken her heart.
“This is kind of kinky,” he said, referring to the location, when Lily got out of the car and started toward him.
She stopped instantly, and since her face was in shadow, he couldn’t gauge her reaction to the dumb-ass thing he’d just said. Like as not, she’d bolt for the Taurus now, and lay rubber getting out of there.
Smooth, Creed, he told himself. Real smooth.
Lily didn’t move, either to flee or come any closer.
“I don’t think it’s kinky,” she said tentatively. “I’ve always liked this place.”
Tyler walked toward her, looked down into her face. Up close, he could see that she’d taken some trouble with her appearance, not that she wouldn’t have looked good covered in coal dust from head to foot, and he took the effort she’d made as a favorable omen.
“Me, too,” he said. “Never thought it was spooky, like most graveyards would be, especially at night.”
Keep on diggin’, Creed. You’ll run her off yet.
The moonlight touched her face and he saw that she was smiling, though just a little, and kind of cautiously. The faint scent of her perfume made him dizzy.
“I brought you a present,” she said, with a twinkle in her eyes. She reached into her handbag and brought out a box, extended it to him.
Condoms.
Tyler laughed. “Thanks,” he said. “But I brought some along myself.” He had blankets, too, old but clean, in case the ground was too cold for her, or too hard, or a little damp.
She took the box back, dropped it into her purse again. Swallowed visibly. The motion of her neck muscles made him want to nibble at the hollow of her throat, make his way to her earlobe—
“What happens now?” he asked, when she didn’t say anything. Damn, but he was batting a thousand tonight. What happens now? Why didn’t he just ask what her sign was, or some other stupid question, and be done with it? Consign himself to the Fool’s Hall of Fame once and for all?
Lily chuckled, sounding a mite less nervous than before, but not by much. “I really thought you’d have that part all figured out,” she teased, almost shyly. She looked around a little, hugged herself, even though it was a warm night. “Nobody else is likely to show up, right?”
“We’re alone, except for a few ghosts.” Tyler moved in, drawn to her like steel filings to a magnet, tucked a blond curl behind her right ear. Wondered if she had any idea that she looked just like a moon goddess with her hair like that, and all awash in silvery light. “Are you cold? I’ve got a jacket in the truck.”
She shook her head, rubbed her palms up and down her bare arms once more, then dropped her hands to her sides. “Just feeling a little shy.”
“I think you need to get over that,” Tyler said. His voice was hoarse now, with the need of her. With the things she made him feel, even with both of them standing there like a couple of kids about to step out on a dance floor together for the first time.
They weren’t even touching, for God’s sake.
“I think so, too,” she replied. “I’m just not sure where to start.”
“Here’s an idea.” He drew her close, bent his head, kissed her. Lightly at first, then with tongue.
When it ended, they were both breathless.
“That works,” Lily said.
Tyler chuckled and took her hand then, led her to the spot he’d chosen, after considering several. He’d already spread the blankets on the ground, in the softest place he’d been able to find, under a gnarled but beautiful old maple tree with stars caught in its branches.
Lily stepped onto the thick nest of blankets, tossed her handbag aside and kicked off her sexy sandals. Hauled that little red dress right off over her head and stood there in her lacy underpants and a bra that barely covered her nipples.
“I guess foreplay’s out,” Tyler said, stricken stupid by the sight of her.
Lily unhooked her bra, slipped out of it, freeing those lush, perfect breasts of hers. “Waiting was foreplay,” she said, shedding the panties next. “I haven’t been able to think about much of anything else all day.”
She was a moon goddess, all right. She might be offering herself up to him, but there was an elemental power in that, ancient and irresistible.
Tyler just stood there, staring at her, wondering when he’d gotten to be such a lucky son of a bitch.
Still, power or no power, if Lily thought he was going to play this game her way, after the way she’d made him sweat on her father’s back porch that morning, she was mistaken. He’d meant what he’d said about paying her back.
He was going to kiss and caress every inch of her.
He was going to suck her breasts and part that nest of moist curls at the junction of her thighs and do some sucking there, too. He’d bring her within a heartbeat of orgasm, as many times as he could, and then let her settle slowly back down into the wanting again.
When he finally had her in earnest, she’d be way past ready, and so would he.
“You’re not going to get off that easy,” he told her, watching with appreciation as she lowered herself onto the blankets and reached her arms out for him. He hadn’t planned the double-entendre, but it worked.
She blushed, and it was quite a sight, since the color swept, pearly pink in the moonlight, from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. There was some mighty nice territory in between, in need of some careful—and close—attention.
“Tyler,” she murmured.
He took off his shirt, got out of his boots, unbuckled his belt and worked the buttons on his jeans. When he was as naked as she was, she looked him over with frank hunger and some trepidation, but her arms were still out.
Tyler knelt on the blankets first, relishing the view. Her nipples stood up like pink pebbles, and though she’d been shivering earlier, a fine sheen of perspiration glistened around her hairline now, between her breasts, on her flat belly.
He cupped his hand around those private curls of hers, slipped a couple of fingers inside her, worked her clitoris with a slow circling of the heel of his palm.
She gasped in welcome; her eyes rolled back and closed, and she arched her back. Parted her legs, ready to take him in.
Prim and proper in public, Lily Ryder was another kind of woman altogether in private.
Oh, yeah. He was one lucky son of a bitch.
“Damn you, Tyler,” she whimpered, her head still back and her eyes still closed, as he continued to play with her. She was getting wetter by the moment, and he could feel her expanding to accommodate him. “Take me. I’ve been waiting for this since—Oh God—” Her hips bucked high off the bed of blankets, but Tyler kept pace with her. Withdrew his hand when he felt the first quivering flex of a climax close around his fingers.
She made a strangled sound of frustration and brewing fury. “Don’t tease,” she pleaded.
“Lady, I’m going to tease you within an inch of your life,” Tyler vowed gruffly. “And then I’m going to tease you some more.”
“Just this once, Ty—please—”
Slowly, he stroked the insides of her thighs, enjoying the silken tremor he stirred beneath her flesh with every light pass of his fingertips.
“I can make you want me, you know,” she sputtered, trying to sit up and then falling back again, with a long, low groan, as he intensified his efforts.
“Oh, I already want you,” Tyler assured her. “No question about that. But I’m a patient man. I can wait until you beg—and for a long time after that.”
Her eyes widened and sparked fire in the moonlight. The goddess was purely pissed off now, and Amazon-strong. She caught hold of him with one hand and stroked, and he did some groaning of his own.
When she went down on him, he gave a strangled shout, buried his hands in her hair, meant to lift her away but held her to him instead.
She was greedy, took him into the back of her throat, then tongued him until he was literally blind with need. Just when he would have let go, he managed to gather enough willpower to raise her off him, but just barely.
He sat there, on his haunches, all the blood in his body pulsing in his pecker. He gasped, struggling for breath, still holding Lily’s head in his hands.
The temptation to let her finish was almost overwhelming.
Almost, but not quite.
“Is that enough foreplay for you, Tyler?” she challenged.
“Not—even—close,” he ground out. He used the last of his strength to roll onto his back, catching her by the waist and bringing her with him. She wound up right where he wanted her—straddling his face.
He used his tongue to burrow through to her clitoris, flicked at her.
She cried out his name, began to move in an involuntary, instinctive rhythm, as old as the bright moon shining down on both of them. He gripped her hips, keeping pace, took her full in his mouth and sucked.
Until he knew she was about to come.
Then he lifted her off him. Breathed his way back from wherever he’d been, the taste of her still on his lips.
“Please,” she whispered, after a tremor of what must have been rage went through her, a little earthquake following a fault line deep inside her. “Oh God, Tyler, please!”
“You’re going to have to do better than that,” he murmured, and kissed and nibbled at the insides of her thighs, slick with wanting now, tiny muscles rippling under the skin, until she sagged back onto him.
He gave her another ride, this one even wilder than the last, but stopped just short of letting her come unwound.
Not that she’d be satisfied with one orgasm, no matter how ferocious it was—he knew that much about Lily, though a lot of other things were still a tantalizing mystery. Oral sex didn’t sate her, it only increased her need. She was a woman who needed to be rode hard and put away wet.
With Lily, sex was anything but tentative. The harder, faster and deeper, the better.
She might come a hundred times, but until he drove into her, until he gave her what she wanted, with no holding back, every flick of his tongue and touch of his fingers would only make her want him more.
No matter how many times they were together, Tyler realized, with a kind of crazy, beleaguered joy, it would always be that way.
They could get married and have a houseful of kids.
They could raise those kids and turn gray-haired and stiff in the joints.
And even after all that, when he laid Lily down, she’d still want it X-rated, just the way she did tonight.
The knowledge did something new to Tyler, changed the whole terrain of his mind and his body and his soul. Again.
“Marry me, Lily,” he heard himself say, even as he nuzzled at her, ready to let her go over the top this time. Then, more raggedly, “Marry me?”
“Yes,” she choked out. “Yes!”
“Yes, you’ll marry me, or yes, you like what I’m doing to you right now?” He made a slow circle around her clitoris with his tongue, causing her to give another throaty cry. “Which is it, Lily?”
“It’s—oh, dear God—it’s both! Tyler—”
He sent her over the edge then. Held her hips while she bucked, convulsing, alternately whimpering and yelling his name.
When she’d finally finished, and spent several minutes getting her breath back, she shifted onto her back, lay trembling on the blankets beside him, and said what he’d known she’d say.
He did what she asked, what she commanded him to do.
And they’d repeated the whole scenario at least three times before he remembered the condoms he’d brought along.
Hell of a lot of good they were doing in the glove compartment of his truck, he reflected happily, still in the throes of a kind of satisfaction he’d never known with any woman but Lily.
* * *
WOBBLY-KNEED, Lily finally recovered enough to reach for the dress she’d discarded so readily earlier in the evening. She examined it carefully, was relieved to see it didn’t need to be laundered again, and smoothed the fabric with the palms of both hands, once again embarrassed by the shameless way she’d carried on while Tyler was loving her.
Tyler curled a finger under her chin, made her look at him.
“Promise me something,” he said.
Her lower lip trembled, and tears burned in her eyes. “What?”
She blinked, bit her lower lip, not knowing what to say.
Tyler went on. “I like the way you act when we make love, Lily. I like the things you say and the noises you make and the way you ride me like you’re going for a world championship on the wildest bronc ever to come out of the chute.”
Lily’s brain was fogged. None of the circuits were connecting.
I like the way you act when we make love…
He’d said “make love.” Did that mean anything?
She continued to grope her way toward some kind of normalcy, but neither her mind nor her body wanted to cooperate. He’d asked her to marry him earlier—or had she just imagined that in the heat of passion?
“Lily?” Tyler prompted, one corner of his mouth tilted up in a grin so sultry it fell just short of being cocky. He reached for his jeans while he waited for her to answer, put them back on. But he was still bare-chested, and the moonlight played in his ebony hair.
“I’ve never done w-what I did to—with you—”
Tyler chuckled, found her panties and her bra and gave them to her. “It was good, Lily,” he told her. “Really good.”
She absorbed that, pleased and at the same time even more embarrassed than before. Got into her panties and her bra and pulled the dress back on. Smoothed it anxiously when she got to her feet.
Tyler, still kneeling on the blankets, eased the hem of that dress up to the top of her thighs, hooked a finger at the waist of her panties, and pulled them down again. Fondled her.
Lily moaned and moved her feet apart by a fraction of an inch. “Tyler—”
“Once more for the road,” he said. “Tilt your head back a little, so I can see the moonlight on your face….”
He slid his fingers inside her.
She tightened around him, quivered as he awakened all those needs all over again.
His thumb made gentle revolutions around her slick, pleasure-swollen clitoris.
“Oh,” she whimpered. She thought her knees would give out, but she was already climbing—climbing. “Tyler—”
“Shh,” he said, raspy-voiced, looking up at her, watching every change of expression as the surrender began, softly this time. Oh, yes, this time, it was soft—soft and slow and infinitely sweet. “Let it happen, Lily. Just let it happen.”
She threw back her head.
“Look at me,” Tyler told her.
She obeyed. She would have obeyed practically any order he gave her, under the circumstances. Done anything for the precious release she craved.
A faint gasp escaped her as she caught on a silky, dreamlike climax, as she flowed with it, flexed with it, let it carry her along like some velvet river.
When it was over, she would have collapsed if Tyler hadn’t grasped her hips again, the way he had so many times that night, and held her upright.
Once he was standing, facing her, he kissed her lightly on the mouth.
“You’re in no condition to drive,” he told her, when he drew back. “So we’re spending the rest of the night at the cabin.”
“Okay,” Lily said, leaning into him, letting him slip a strong arm around her waist and guide her to the passenger side of his truck. “But what about Davie?”
“He’s at Logan and Briana’s for the night,” Tyler answered, hoisting her onto the seat and buckling her in. A grin played on his mouth. “Kit Carson will be around, but he’s discreet.”
Lily giggled, put a hand over her mouth and burst into tears.
She’d felt too much, and she was about to feel more.
Could she stand it, after years and years of holding it all in?
She was practically a puddle now. What kind of shape would she be in if she spent the rest of the night in Tyler Creed’s bed? What if he played with her until she went stone-crazy, like he had on those blankets under the tree, making her come again and again but withholding what she needed most until she was too weak even to beg?
Evidently reading her face, Tyler chuckled. He looked like some cowboy Adonis, standing there in the moonlight, naked from the waist up and soft-eyed with satisfaction. Already, though, some new mischief was brewing in those impossibly blue eyes.
“Relax,” he said. “The night is young.”
That was what she was afraid of.
She was wrung out, spent. She didn’t have another orgasm in her—she would have been superhuman if she had.
Still grinning, Tyler left her long enough to put his shirt and boots on, collect the blankets and her purse, bring them back to the truck. All the while, she sat there like a lump, sated into a near stupor.
And yet that tiny, magical muscle was awakening again.
Getting ready.
“Did you ask me to marry you?” she inquired, as they were jostling over country roads toward his lake place.
“Yeah,” Tyler answered, reaching over to lay a hand on her knee and slide it slowly, skillfully up under her dress, along her bare thigh. “And you said yes.”
“I thought so,” Lily said. She should push his hand away, she knew she should, but it felt too good, resting on her skin, just short of her panties.
He laughed.
Lily knew he was seducing her, slowly and surely, that she’d be lucky to make it as far as the man’s bed before he had her acting like a hussy again. But there was no resistance in her, anywhere.
Tyler had untied all the knots inside her.
And he was tying them back up again, moment by moment.
Lily struggled for balance.
He hadn’t said he loved her, she reminded herself.
Maybe he never would.
Would that matter?
Eventually, it probably would, she decided, enjoying the weight and warmth of his hand, squirming a little, needing to be touched where he wasn’t quite touching. But that night, it didn’t.
There was always the danger, of course, that she’d blurt out the words—I love you, Tyler—in the throes of some violent orgasm.
Maybe he’d say them back to her.
And maybe he’d pretend he hadn’t heard.
“Where will we live?” she asked, as they turned into his driveway. Her practical side was trying to reassert itself, though obviously without much success.
“We’ll figure that out,” Tyler promised, parking the truck.
The cabin was dark, though she could hear Kit Carson inside, barking out a welcome.
Tyler got out of the truck, walked around to open her door for her. Helped her down.
She swayed a little.
He steadied her.
“We forgot to use the condoms,” she said.
“Yeah,” Tyler agreed lightly. “We sure did.”
And then he took her into his house, where Kit Carson greeted them in a frenzy of welcome. He cooked an omelet, and they shared it, and the dog got some, too.
They bathed each other in the lake after that, and made love again, on the end of the dock, with only the moonlight for covers.
Lily was purely happy, content in a way she’d never thought possible.
And that should have been a warning.