It was good, so very good, but it wasn’t enough. Carla remembered how it had been to taste Luke. Hot, wildly exciting, transforming her in the few seconds before the kiss had become too adult, too hard, demanding more of her than she had dreamed at eighteen; but she had dreamed many, many times since then, and running through her dreams like streamers of fire had been the memory of his taste, the electric intimacy of his tongue caressing her own, the hard length of his body imprinted on her own softness.

Remembering how it had been three years ago, Carla slowly opened her mouth until she could touch Luke’s lips with just the tip of her tongue. She felt the shock wave of sensation that went through him at the caress, making his powerful body tremble. A small whimper escaped from the back of her throat when she tried to breathe and found she couldn’t; she was held in the vise of the sensual instant, wholly focused on the sensations spreading from the tip of her tongue throughout her body.

The sound of surprise and discovery that Carla made sent another shock wave moving through Luke, shaking him.

"Sunshine," he whispered, "oh, baby, don’t…"

He had no breath to finish, for she had taken it from him with another gliding caress of her tongue.

The sound he made then was not unlike hers when she discovered she couldn’t breathe. She trembled and moved her mouth again, instinctively fitting it more closely to his, touching his lips with her tongue, finding warmth, seeking the greater warmth she knew lay within.

Luke tried not to lift his arms, tried not to close them around Carla, tried not to turn and ease his legs between hers, tried not to pull her down until the soft weight of her was astride his thighs. But it happened anyway, the catching and the holding, the turning and the pulling down. It all happened in sweet, slow motion despite his desperate reluctance to allow any part of it to happen at all. His body simply ignored the commands of his mind, for the shy gliding of her tongue had taken away his ability to remember yesterday and foresee tomorrow.

There was enough self-control in Luke not to frighten Carla as he had three years ago, but not enough to turn her away as he knew he must. Like a mountain lying in wait for dawn, poised in the instants between darkness and light, Luke let Carla come to him – first the faint hint of warmth, then the delicate pressure of sunshine sliding down his body to rest in his lap, sending heat radiating through him. He whispered her name again, a word more felt than heard, for it was breathed from his mouth into hers.

The piercing sweetness of hearing him say her name was greater than anything Carla had dreamed, making her shiver and cry out, a cry that went no farther than the dark warmth of Luke’s mouth. Moments later he felt the gentle scalding of her tears against his lips and was racked by emotion himself. To be wanted like that was more than he had believed possible, even in his hottest dreams.

Trembling, pressing closer and closer to the heat and power of Luke’s body, Carla touched his tongue with her own, wanting the taste of him to rill her mouth as it had once before. She felt the sudden, fierce clenching of his thighs as she settled more fully onto his lap, pressing lightly against him with her breasts and hips and belly. And still the kiss stayed gentle, almost fragile, balanced on the blazing edge of fire.

She wanted to tell him that it was all right, that this time she wouldn’t turn and run if he kissed her back, kissed her hard, kissed her as though he were dying of thirst and she was a clear spring for his taking. But she said nothing, for in order to speak she would have had to end the kiss…and that she could not do. She had dreamed of this too long, too completely, dreaming all the way down to her soul.

So Carla kissed Luke as she wanted to be kissed, tasting him deeply, feeling the sweet abrasion of beard stubble at the edges of his lips and beneath her palms, pressing closely, sinking into him, trembling, feeling him tremble in return. His mouth opened as he both allowed her greater freedom and took her own mouth in return. His tongue slid between her teeth, tasted her in wild silence, found every hidden softness of her mouth and then slowly, slowly began an intimate rhythm of penetration and retreat.

The languid stroking was repeated by his big hands smoothing up and down her back, her legs, easing her closer, shifting her hips with gentle pressures, lifting her body into more perfect balance with his; and all the while he continued the complete seduction of her mouth, making it wholly his. Her tongue moved in rhythm with his, she tasted of him, her breath tore as his did, and the small sounds of passion he drew from the back of her throat were the essence of his own desire.

Luke’s hands clenched and his short nails raked with sensuous precision down Carla’s spine. He felt the breaking of her breath, the wild shudder of her body, the involuntary arching of her hips into his. He tried to bite back a cry of pleasure-pain as she rocked softly against his aroused flesh, but a groan escaped his control; and she drank the passionate sound as he had drunk her own small cries.

The warmth of Luke’s hands followed the slow unbuttoning of Carla’s blouse, and as each button came undone his teeth sank gently into her tongue, distracting her. She would have let him undress her anyway, distraction or no, for her skin was on fire and her clothes were stifling her and she wanted to be as naked as her tongue sweetly tangling with his.

Luke had just enough self-control left to know if he unhooked Carla’s bra, he wouldn’t stop undressing her until she was wholly nude, her body open to him, and he was naked within her. With hands that shook, he pushed aside the soft folds of cotton blouse and smoothed his palms over her breasts once, lightly.

He might as well have taken a whip of fire to her. She shivered, transfixed, and her nipples hardened to his soft touch.

Knowing he shouldn’t, helpless to prevent himself, Luke slid a long finger beneath each bra strap and slowly caressed her the hollow of Carla’s collarbone to the warm slope of her breasts. He hesitated, groaned almost soundlessly and eased his fingers farther down, beneath the warm lace, stroking slowly, savoring the rise of warm, firm flesh, the satin areola, the velvet of her nipples. Sweetly, in the same rhythm as his tongue mating with hers, he flicked back and forth over the tight peaks beneath the lace until they were as hard as the male flesh thrusting hungrily between his thighs.

A soft, ragged moan was torn from Carla’s lips, a sound Luke took into his own mouth, devouring it as he wanted to devour her. For long, rasping seconds he plucked her velvet nipples until she quivered wildly and her hips rocked in silent pleading against his hard flesh. He freed one hand and let it slide over her belly, tracing the zipper of her jeans without opening it, sliding down and down until he could feel her humid heat resting in the palm of his hand. He moved slowly, rocking with her, wanting her until it was like dying not to take her.

With a sound of anguish Luke ended the kiss, freeing his mouth without freeing Carla’s body from his caressing hands. She trembled violently, breathing as raggedly as he was, her eyes dark with the first passion she had ever known.

"I want you," Luke said harshly, flexing his hand into Carla’s secret warmth, shuddering when she moaned. "But that’s all it will ever be," he continued through clenched teeth, understanding finally the dimensions of his own personal hell. "Wanting. No rings and vows, no babies and color snapshots and scrapbooks to put in with the old albums. No happily ever after. I’ll grind no modern woman into bits on the Rocking M. I’ll leave no more children to be raised without mothers. The MacKenzie line will end with me."

Shocked, trembling, trying not to cry, Carla felt Luke’s pain more deeply than her own.

"But I want you to know this," he continued, his voice savage, his eyes blazing with all he would never know, never do, never be. "No matter who you marry or how many lovers you take, no matter how long you live, no man will ever want you the way I do."

With a swift, powerful movement Luke stood, lifting Carla and setting her aside in the same motion.

"Stay away from me, sunshine. If you come to me again like this I’m afraid I won’t have the strength to say no. Then I would take you and hate you and myself and the ranch that’s as much a part of me as my soul."

9

"Cosy just left." Luke said, answering Carla’s question and watching her intently despite the activity around the corral. "Why? Did you want to go to town with him?"

Carla shook her head, making a shaft of sunlight tangle and run through her hair. "I’ve got a recipe I want to try and it needs a particular spice. By the time I realized it, it was too late to put in on the list."

Luke snapped his leather work gloves impatiently against his thigh. "Hell, schoolgirl, this is a ranch, not a fancy city restaurant. West Fork never heard of most of the junk you want to put in the food."

Carla’s chin came up as belligerently as Luke’s. "Listen, cowboy, the only complaint I’ve ever had from the men about my cooking is that their horses are threatening to go on strike over all the extra poundage they have to haul around these days."

A corner of Luke’s mouth turned up. "Heard rumors of that myself. Even Ten ordered a new pair of jeans, and that old boy was nothing but rawhide and hard times before he started putting away your food like there was no tomorrow. First thing you know he’ll be as fat as I am."

"You? Fat?" Carla looked Luke over from the brim of his cowboy hat to the toes of his boots. "Pull my other leg. There’s not an extra ounce on you anywhere. You and Ten are enough to make me yank my hair out. The more I feed you, the better you look, and Lord knows neither one of you was exactly ugly to begin with."

Luke laughed despite the stabbing pleasure Car-la’s frank admiration sent through him. He had tried to keep her at arm’s length since she had come to him in the blazing silence of the dining room and taught him just how much a man could want a woman and still survive not having her. He had twenty-three more days of hell to endure until her stint as cook and housekeeper was over.

Twenty-three days. He wondered if he could make it. Keeping Carla at a distance had proven to be impossible. The anger he had turned against her earlier in the summer was simply gone, burned up in the far hotter fires of his passion for her. He was edgy, he slept badly, he was short-tempered – but not with Carla. No matter how much easier it would have been to be angry with her, he simply could not feel rage toward the girl who had come to him, offering her body and her soul to him with a single shattering kiss.

One kiss, but no more. Carla had heeded Luke’s pain, if not his warning. She continued to serve Luke hot food when he came in long after the other hands had eaten. She poured coffee for him, joined him if he asked her to, listened with transparent pleasure when he talked about what he had done that day. She cleaned every inch of the house, washed and mended everything in his closet and drawers. She joked with all the men equally, giving no man any encouragement to become personal, and did it all so diplomatically mat Luke was reminded of Marian Turner’s deft handling of the courting outlaws.

In all, Carla had done nothing to earn Luke’s displeasure and everything to fulfill the terms of the bet. He could hardly blame her if sometimes he turned around unexpectedly and saw her watching him with desire and wonder mingling in her beautiful eyes. He watched her in the same way, was caught in the same way, and walked off in the same way.

Alone.

Nothing was said. No excuse was given. None was needed. Luke and Carla could not have understood each other better if they had been connected to the same central nervous system.

And time after time, late at night, when thunder and lightning stalked the wild land, Luke heard Carla pacing her room, men tiptoeing down the hall to the kitchen. A few minutes later he would hear the faint scrape of a dining room chair being moved; and he would lie awake, his body clenched with savage need, and picture how she must look at that instant, sitting and sipping hot lemon water, wearing nothing but the black shirt he had left with Cash…the shirt Carla had chosen to use as a nightgown, wearing nothing beneath it but her fragrant skin.