Or the way I *think he’s looking at me. Because this could all just be a fantasy--something I’m making up in my head to pass the time.
“Y’all don’t get up to too much trouble. I’m supposed to get Cadence back to the ranch so she can sketch. And we’ve got the electrician coming out to the guest house so she can stay there--“
“We won’t,” shouts Star, and she pulls me along the corridor. I look back one more time at Rowan, and his eyes are locked on my body.
I expect him to look away, but he doesn’t. Instead, he just tips his imaginary hat again and his eyes sear straight through mine, like he’s looking through my clothes--or worse, like he’s searching for that core of a woman deep inside, the one whose light got snuffed out a long time ago.
A pinprick of light, like the very beginning of desire, starts deep inside. The flames swirl through me, and I’m left in a state of wonder before I turn back around and try to shut down the idea completely.
Before I start talking with Star, though, I wonder—is it possible that woman still exists?
CHAPTER SIX
I wake to light coming in the windows. It’s been a damn long time since I’ve woken up after the sun rose. I’m usually out there with the horses at four in the morning, cleaning out their stables and brushing them down, checking their hooves for signs of infection and overgrowth.
“You can hire someone to do that for you, Rowan. Why the hell are you always waking me up so early so you can go play farmhand?”
I growl and pull the pillow over my head. Why the hell had I let myself sleep so late anyway? On the floor, I hear Eliza Doolittle waking up and rolling around on the carpet, snorting and snuffling like she does in the morning. She stops like she hears something, and then I hear what she hears. Down the hall, a woman stepping onto the floor and walking into the bathroom, grabbing towels from the closet, and starting the water of the shower.
“That’s right, Eliza. She’s still here, and we can see if we can convince her not to work today.” Eliza’s black and white face appears on the side of my bed, before she trots over to the door and pushes it open. Typical. Eliza’s more interested in our mysterious guest than she is in me.
And I don’t blame her. I close my eyes and think of leading Cadence up the stairs to her bedroom the first night she was here. The shoulder of her tunic had slipped down, revealing a lacy purple bra strap. A jolt of electric tension had risen in my body, and I’d had the instinct to whirl her around and take her into my arms. This cowboy might be a loner in the mountains of New Mexico, but he knows his way around the body of a woman like that. After a month of very little human contact, I’d almost gone crazy looking at her, right then and there.
Even now, my cock grows at the thought. The shower runs on down the hall, and I think of that purple shirt and her paint-stained skinny jeans on the floor of the bathroom. If I could step into that shower with her, well, I’d probably be dumbstruck at first. I’d be watching that hot water stream over her curvy body, over those full breasts and down to her hips and ass. If I’d gotten her that far, I know she’d be wet as hell, and I’d reach between her legs to check just how slick she was. And she’s a woman who looks like she’d be hot for it, moaning when I touched her, gasping when I slipped two fingers deep inside, pressing the base of my palm against her clit and pushing her against the white and gold marble tiles of the shower. Absently, I move my hand to my cock, stroking it beneath the sheets, thinking of her wet, tight pussy gripping my fingers, thinking of watching her face as her eyes widen, as she starts to let go of that tight, distant, loneliness inside.
Maybe I’m imagining it, but it looks like she hasn’t been appreciated by a real man in a long time. At least that’s what it seemed to me, and I’m a connoisseur of fine women. And it’s been a good while since a woman like that walked through these doors.
I may be conceited as hell, but I know for damn sure what I could give to a woman like that. A woman with fine artist’s hands and a full, curved body made for sinning, made to drain a man dry and give his soul back what it was missing. Closing my eyes, I focus on the thought of her mouth, her soft lips against mine, wondering if she would taste as decadent as she looks. I keep stroking myself until I’m hard as a rock, and the images of Cadence are all blending together in my mind. Her lips, those soft dark eyelashes, the flawless skin and the firm roundness of her hips in my hands. I rest on that one image, imagine the feeling of her waist between my hands, thinking of the sound she might make as I bent her over that bed in the guest room and pushed the head of my cock against her pussy, sliding into it, hot and tight and ready for me to own completely.