The Cowboy's Baby(22)

As docile as Apple usually was, when she was frightened, she was a beast to bring down. Daniel wrestled with her for a good two minutes before the bucking mare swerved in a movement violent enough to bounce Esme roughly from her back.

Instantly, Daniel let go of the panicking horse, moving to catch Esme’s flailing form before she hit the ground. One arm snapped around her waist, and the other her behind, inches from the hard dirt, before he hauled her upright.

For a moment, neither of them moved. Esme seemed to be holding her breath, in disbelief that she was still in one piece. Daniel was taken briefly back to a time when another mare had stepped into a pothole, breaking her leg and jarring Alyssa from its back. He’d had to put the poor creature down, and to add insult to injury, Alyssa had blamed him and hadn’t spoken to him for two weeks.

He waited with bated breath for Esme to erupt in a storm of tears and hysterics, his heart pounding in his chest. However, after a beat, the only thing that erupted from the young woman’s mouth was a relieved, nervous laugh.

“Holy hell…I thought I was going to break my neck.” She looked up at him as the panic slowly faded from her eyes, her lips curving in strange amusement. “Is Apple OK? What happened?”

Was the horse alright?

For a moment, he’d been able to see Esme in his mind’s eye with half of her bones broken, her lovely face streaked with tears, his child within her fighting for its life. And she wanted to know if the horse was alright?

“Apple is fine.” He breathed in disbelief, sparing a look over at the mare who was now grazing at the edge of the paddock almost as if nothing had happened. When he turned back to the woman in his arms, he was still struggling to comprehend her behavior. “Are you alright?”

“Fine.” Esme’s voice was completely calm as she smiled up at him. “You caught me, didn’t you?”

All Daniel could do was stare at her. The young woman’s hair was windswept, the first few buttons of her shirt undone in her fall, exposing a tantalizing amount of chocolate hued cleavage. There was a thin sheen of sweat on her brow from the spring afternoon heat, and most shocking of all, she was smiling after only moments before being thrown from a horse during her first riding lesson.

Daniel kissed her.

He could no more deny the impulse than he could his own nature. He normally wasn’t a man ruled by his impulses, but Esme brought out something in him…something that other women had struggled to stifle – to dress in the guise of the moneyed success that he had accomplished, but which he refused to allow to define him.

She was sweeter, even, than he had imagined. Like taking a drink after an eternity of thirst as she arched against him, her fingers immediately knocking his Stetson askew as they tunneled through his hair.

His tongue sought the crease of her lips, tracing it briefly in a plea for admission before it slipped into her mouth to tease her own to life. The way she responded to him - instantaneous and earnest, ignited searing heat that shot straight to his cock, making him almost lightheaded with want for her.

Jesus, he’d forgotten what it was like to kiss a woman for the first time and really want her - not because you were expected to or on a drunken one night stand – but to desire nothing more than to burry yourself inside her –for days if necessary until your name was the only thing she could remember.

Daniel caught her lower lip between his teeth to suckle gently before drawing her body tight against his own. Leaning back against the fence that separated the paddock from the rest of the property, he hefted her against him, his large hands curling into her firm behind, pressing her against the erection rising to press against the seam of his jeans.

Esme moaned softly, practically wrapping her legs around his waist in a bid to mold herself against him, and her obvious desire made him want nothing more than to carry her back to the main house and the warmth of his bed.

Just then, Lincoln whinnied loudly, startling them apart from his position tied to a fencepost nearby. The haze of lust that had descended upon Daniel slowly cleared as he took in the woman he was holding, from her half-lidded eyes to her kiss swollen lips.

She was breathtakingly beautiful.

And his surrogate.

Carrying the child that he and Alyssa had created.

Slowly, Daniel lowered her down his long form, his insides churning with a mixture of guilt and arousal. The moment she registered the regret in his eyes, Esme’s widened slightly before she scrambled away from him, dusting imaginary dirt from her hands onto her leggings awkwardly. “I’m sorry.” She spoke quickly, her fingers twisting together as she concentrated on Apple’s grazing form across the paddock.