Elizabeth Lowell - Only His

Caleb waited for Willow to open her lips, offering a more passionate kiss, but he waited in vain. She gave back a kiss as chaste as he had given to her, then she sighed and stroked and petted him until he wanted to groan. The feel of her delicate hands on his skin was setting him on fire, as was the obvious enjoyment she took in his body.

Yet she made no move to deepen the kiss, to join her mouth with his once again in a prelude to a more intimate kind of mating.

Puzzled, Caleb wondered if Reno was the kind of man who liked to hurt women in bed. That would explain Willow’s instant fear when she had felt Caleb’s hand between her legs, but it wouldn’t explain Rebecca’s persistence in protecting her lover’s identity. Rebecca had beencossetted and frankly spoiled. She had been full of mischief and love and life. A man who was cruel to her would never have won her heart, her chastity, and her loyalty. She would have required a gentleman before she gave herself.

Abruptly Caleb realized that he was no one’s definition of a gentleman, especially at the moment. He smelled of horses and hard work and clothes that had been worn too long. Willow didn’t. She smelled of lavender and meadow grass and sunshine. No wonder she was reluctant to get closer to him. Now that Caleb thought about it, he wasn’t real crazy about being close to himself, either.

«I’m good at something else, too,» Caleb said, lowering Willow to the ground and stepping back from her. «I’m a very special kind of water dowser.»

«You are?»

He made a rumbling sound of agreement. «I can find hot springs almost anywhere.»

The possibilities widened Willow’s eyes and distracted her from the disappointment of being released from Caleb’s arms so quickly.

«You can find hot water? Even here?»

«Especially here. My sixth sense tells me there’s a hot spring just off the head of the valley, and the pool is big enough to float in.»

She smiled, remembering the journal Caleb’s father had kept of his travels in the West. «You’re a wonder, Caleb Black.»

«Actually, I’m kind of slow to figure some things out, but I’m learning.»

«Want to flip a coin?»

He blinked. «Whatever for?»

«To see who gets the first bath.»

Caleb caught himself just before he said something foolish about bathingtogether. Rememberthe trout. Slow and sweet and easy. No sudden moves. No impatience. All the time in the world.

«You go first, honey. I’ll groom the horses.»

«That isn’t fair to you.»

«I like working with horses.»

«Then I’ll wash our clothes. Deal?» Willow asked, holding out her hand.

Caleb took it, brought it to his lips, and gently bit the pad of flesh at the base of Willow’s thumb. «Deal.»

He released her hand and began unbuttoning his shirt.

«What are you doing?» she asked.

«Taking off my clothes. Unless you planned to wash them with me still inside…?»

«Er, no.»

But the thought intrigued Willow. It showed in the deepening of color on her face. Caleb smiled and pulled off his shirt, enjoying the widening of Willow’s eyes and the flush in her cheeks when she looked at him. She might have been reluctant to make love with him, even afraid, but she made no effort to hide her approval of him as a man. It was one of the many paradoxes about Willow that both lured and baffled Caleb.

Curious about her response, Caleb began unfastening his pants. Willow made a shocked sound and jerked her glance back up to his face.

«Same problem as with the shirt,» Caleb said blandly.

Willow swallowed hard and said, «I’ll get you a blanket.»

She turned and ran across the grass toward camp with Caleb’s deep laughter following her every step of the way.

Willow floated in the warm pool, wondering if she had died and gone to heaven despite herunangelic nature. Thirty feet above her, water gushed out from a crack in the black rock of the mountainside. The crack ran in a steeply narrowing V that ended in a waterfall. At the top of the V, the water seethed with steam. By the time it leaped and cascaded into the deep pool, the water had cooled enough not to scald naked skin. To Willow’s surprise, the pool had proved to be sweet rather thansulphurous.

«Caleb is indeed a very special kind of dowser,» Willow said softly to the pool. «If Matt found a valley like this, it’s no wonder he never came back to the farm. All we had were cool creeks and sun-warmed, mud-bottomed ponds.»

The nearby aspen and evergreens mademurmurous sounds of agreement, whispering to Willow of the seductive, savage beauty of the western land. She whispered back, but it was Caleb she was thinking of, not the land. The thought of the liberties she had allowed him made her blush…and the passion he had tapped within her made her ache.

«What has he done to me?» Willow whispered, shivering, remembering.

«Not enough,» she answered herself softly. «Dear God, not nearly enough.»

If Caleb hadn’t been so gentle with her, Willow would have been frightened by her own thoughts, by her own hungers, by the desire to lie in the midst of clean, seething water and feel Caleb’s hands on her, touching her everywhere the water did.

A sweet arrow of sensation shot through Willow’s body, charging her as though it was Caleb’s mouth rather than warm water caressing her breasts. She trembled again, but not from fear. Once the shock of newness had worn off, she very much enjoyed the feelings he called from her body.

«I could say no to a man who was cruel or cowardly or stupid or selfish,» Willow whispered to the pool. «But Caleb is none of those things. He’s a hard man, but a soft man wouldn’t last very long out here. And Caleb is no harder than he has to be. He takes no pleasure in gunfights and killing. He treats his horses kindly. Not once has he used a whip or sharp spurs.»

«He didn’t think much of me when he first met me,» Willow admitted softly to the steaming water, «but he wasn’t rough with me even then. And he was kind to Widow Sorenson, though I suspect Eddy is her paramour. Caleb must know, yet he defended both of them when they couldn’t defend themselves.»

«But most important,» Willow said, shivering again, remembering, «no matter how hot his blood was running, Caleb hasn’t taken me when other men would have. Other than that first time, he wasn’t even angry when I said no. He’s a gentleman even when I’m not quite a lady.»

Willow was relieved at Caleb’s self-control. She still felt cold when she remembered the barely leashed fury in his eyes when she had begged him not to touch her so intimately.

Fancy lady, some day you’ll be on your knees in front of me again — but you won’t be begging me to stop.

She had never seen a man so angry and yet so much in control of himself. She was grateful for that steel discipline of his. It allowed her to venture into the sweet, seething waters of passion without fear of drowning.

Yet even the thought of drowning in Caleb’s arms pierced Willow with a pleasure that was also pain, the ache of hunger awakened and teased but not soothed by his smile, his hands, his mouth moving over her, burning through her inhibitions to the deep passion beneath. She wanted more of his kisses, his caresses, his taste, the intense sensuality that burned beneath his control.

Unable to bear her own thoughts any longer, Willow rolled over and lowered her feet to the rocky bottom of the pool. The water came up to her chin. Slowly, she half-swam, half-walked the short distance to shore, seeking the long ledge of rock that ran down into the pool. After a brief search, her toes found the ledge. It was warm and nearly smooth from the restless water rushing over it. The stone itself was clean, scrubbed by the constant turmoil of water leaping down the dark cliff into the pool.

After wringing out her hair and blotting herself dry, Willow dressed in the camisole andpantelets she had brought to the pool. Other than the faded, everyday dress she had stuffed into the carpetbag at the last minute — a dress she had worn so often she couldn’t bear the sight of it — the fine cotton underwear was the only clothing she had that was clean. She didn’t even have Caleb’s shirt to pull on over the thin cotton, for the shirt was spread out in the meadow to dry along with the rest of the clothes she had washed.

Willow shook out the cotton blanket she and Caleb had been using as a sheet and wrapped it around herself, securing it under her arms. Holding it up like a narrow skirt, she picked her way through a hundred feet of forest to the meadow where Caleb was grooming the horses, wearing one of the heavy blankets around his hips.

At least, Willow hoped he was wearing a blanket. As hot as the day was, she wouldn’t have blamed him for stripping to his underwear.

What underwear? I washed it all and spread it out in the meadow.

The thought of encountering Caleb naked among the horses was both daunting and…exciting.

Willow’s damp hair felt cool on her flushed cheeks as she walked out into the meadow, taking care to stay in plain sight. The horses’ heads came up as they spotted her. Ishmael nickered, catching the familiar scent of lavender on the breeze.

Caleb gave the stallion’s back another stroke of the brush before he bent down and retrieved the blanket he had thrown off as soon as Willow had vanished into the forest that fringed the meadow. He wrapped the blanket around his hips and went back to grooming the stallion. It wasn’t Caleb’s modesty he was interested in preserving, it was Willow’s. She had blushed like a virgin at the sight of his naked chest. She would go scarlet to her heels if she saw the rest of him bare.

«Your turn for a bath,» Willow said as she walked up to Caleb.

He nodded, but didn’t stop grooming Ishmael.

Willow tried not to admire Caleb’s powerful shoulders, long arms, and the tapering of his body into narrow hips. As he brushed the red stallion, she also tried not to stare at the supple flex and play of skin and muscle, and the wedge of chest hair that tapered down to a finger’s width at his flat navel, then flared once more where the blanket rode low on his hips.

She tried not to stare, but she didn’t succeed. When she realized that he was watching her watching him, she looked away hastily.

«I don’t mind,» Caleb said.

«What?»

«I don’t mind having you look at me.»

As Caleb spoke, he realized it was the simple truth. He never would have guessed how satisfying it could be to have a woman look at him shyly with admiration and sensual hunger in her eyes. Perhaps it was because the few women he had known were older widows to whom a man’s body was nothing remarkable. They had enjoyed his strength around the house and praised his self-control in bed, but they had never looked at him the way Willow was looking, as though the sun rose and set in his eyes and the moon lay cupped in his hands.

«In fact,» Caleb said, «I like having you look at me. It makes me feel like a special kind of man.»

«You are,» Willow said simply.

His crooked smile flashed briefly as he shook his head. «I’m just a man, honey. Smarter than some, dumber than others, and harder than most.»

«I think you’re special,» she whispered.

Caleb heard the soft words. His hand ceased making slow, sweeping strokes over Ishmael’s back. «You’re the special one, Willow.» Before she could speak, he slapped the stallion’s rump. «Go back to eating, horse. A bit of fat wouldn’t do you any harm.»

Ishmael trotted off to count his mares and remind them of his muscular presence. Watching, Caleb said quietly, «You better keep track of them, son. They’re as spirited as they are graceful. Tough, too. I don’t know of any flatland horses that could have stood up to what those mares did.»

«They were bred for stamina, loyalty, and courage,» Willow said.

«How did the Arabs manage that?»

«With rather brutal pragmatism,» she answered, watching her mares ignore the strutting stallion. «For century after century, the sheiks rounded up all the brood mares and drove them out into the desert without water. They kept going until the mares were mad with thirst, then they were driven toward an oasis.»

Caleb looked from Ishmael to Willow, caught by the husky intensity of her voice as she spoke of the horses she loved.

«When the mares scented water, they began to run,» Willow said. «When they were within a hundred yards of water, the battle horns were blown. Only the mares that turned away from water and ran back to their masters were bred.»