Page 19 of One Wild Texas Night
He groaned, grabbed the hose and let it shower cold water over him, wishing he could wash away memories of her body, her mouth, her soft breasts, her kisses, but he knew that he would never forget them.
How he wished some woman would come along who could wipe her out of his memory.
Claire Blake. A Blake with a family of relatives who had fought his for over a century. He had to forget her.
He knew he never would. Not in this lifetime. Worse, he wondered if he would ever stop longing to kiss her.
Swearing quietly, he tossed down the hose, which hadn’t really cooled him. He turned off the water, gathered his shirt and boots, and headed for the house. She had hooked the screen door, and he couldn’t get in. He rang the bell and waited.
Finally, she came to the door, and he wanted to groan, to gnash his teeth, to ask her if this was a new form of torture that she was using because of the feud.
She had a towel wrapped around her head, hiding her hair, and another wrapped around her gorgeous body—a body that had to be very naked beneath that green towel that matched her eyes.
“Sorry, I didn’t intend to lock you out of your house,” she said, her cheeks turning pink as she gave him a long, intense stare and he wondered what she was thinking.
She was looking so gorgeous, so appealing, that he couldn’t find his voice. What was wrong with him?
She must have picked up on his discomfort, because she suddenly looked self-conscious. “This wasn’t such a good idea,” she said. “I’ll see you later. I need to get dressed.” Then she turned to walk away, and he watched her go, that towel clinging damply to her bottom, her long, bare legs revealing that the lower part of her was as gorgeous and sexy as the upper part. Her legs were marvelous. Long, long legs that he would like to feel wrapped around him.
He groaned and closed his eyes to try to stop thinking about having sex with her. He opened his eyes quickly. He wanted to look at her as long as he had a chance. She would come back all covered in something that would completely hide her fabulous body.
He went to his suite, closing the door. From today on, he would never see Claire the way he had before. Every inch of his being wanted her in his cabin and in his arms again. In his bed.
He swore as he got ready to shower and walked into his big bathroom. It was an architectural gem, with a curved shower, huge sunken tub and a glass wall that afforded him an unobstructed view of the outside, though no one could see in. One wall held a built-in floor-to-ceiling tank of exotic tropical fish, while a floor-to-ceiling mirror comprised another wall. Right now, he saw only the shower. He walked into it and turned on the cold water. “Do your stuff,” he said to the cold-water faucet. “I have to forget her. A Blake. I don’t want to entangle my life with her. As if she would let me. Oh damn. How long will it take me to forget her when she lives on the neighboring ranch? And that is my family’s box out there, and it was her thieving dad and brothers that stole it from my family.”
Jake shook his head. He could never be friends with her, never trust her. He shouldn’t ever kiss her again, not even touch her. He’d be polite, let her stay at his cabin because he had already issued the invitation, but she would soon move on, and when she did, he needed to go back to the way it always had been—not speaking to each other, never socializing, absolutely never kissing.
He groaned. Why was the woman whose family had spent lifetimes feuding with his the one with the hottest kisses he had ever known?
He shook his head. He had to avoid her. She might make that easy for him to do, because she’d be angry as a bear when he took that metal box away from her.
He felt another hot flash of anger over the stolen box. Her brothers had probably stolen it and given it to their dad, who’d kept it and everything in it. He thought about calling his father and telling him, but his dad was probably happily fishing and enjoying his retirement—there was no point in bringing up a bad subject that still didn’t have a good solution.
Meanwhile, he needed to get himself away from Claire. They had no future together. So why couldn’t he stop thinking of how she looked in that green towel? Damn. The cold water had done nothing to help him.
* * *
Claire dried her hair and stared at herself in the mirror, but she didn’t see her reflection. She saw Jake’s dark eyes on her, remembered his hands moving lightly over her, remembered his mouth on hers as he kissed her.
Her heartbeat raced. She shouldn’t be staying at his cabin, shouldn’t have undressed in front of him. But the fumes from the fires had permeated her clothing and took her breath. She thought if she still wore her bra, she would be as covered as she always was in a swimsuit.
It must have been a psychological thing, because he had changed the instant she had revealed her bra. For a moment there outside, she’d been caught up in memories of his hands caressing her and the hungry look in his eyes.
With a shake of her head, she tried to stop thinking about Jake. They didn’t have a future. Their families had fought since before Texas was a state. And he had accused her family of stealing that big metal box that belonged to her dad. It was her family’s box. It had survived the fire, and she wanted it. It was rightfully hers. Her brothers had done some bad things, she knew, but they wouldn’t steal.
She felt anger, but it wasn’t as strong as other feelings: hunger for his kisses, yearning for his arms around her, for his hands caressing her. Despite everything, she wanted to be in his arms again. She moaned softly, desiring him, knowing she shouldn’t, that she had to forget him and banish these taunting memories once and for all. And she needed to move out of his cabin as soon as she could and put distance between them. She looked at her palatial surroundings, the big bedroom with an elegant canopied four-poster bed that she suspected was an antique, the antique mirror with an elegant carved frame. Cabin was not the right description for his home in the woods. It was a castle. But it was Jake’s, and as much as she reveled in its beauty, she had to leave it.
She didn’t think her brothers had stolen that box from him or his family. That would be breaking the law, and they didn’t do that. It was just a big metal box, and there were probably millions that looked just like it. There were scratches on it, but no readable names. It would have been obvious if her brothers had stolen it. They would have bragged about it eventually.
She was angry that Jake had insisted from the first second he saw the box that it had belonged to his family.
She shouldn’t have gotten so chummy with him. She shouldn’t even be staying with him, but she’d never made friends with neighboring ranchers and had nowhere else to go. Her friends were in Dallas, friends she had made growing up, friends of her family, neighbors she’d had in town.
She considered her employees friends, but with this fire, they had terrible problems, too. They needed her help probably more than she needed theirs.
She and Jake were part of feuding families, and that wasn’t going to change. The metal box was just one issue. There would constantly be other issues, because they saw life in different ways, and they didn’t like each other’s relatives.
She knew she was vulnerable because of her isolated lifestyle. She didn’t often go to Dallas, where she had friends and at least some social life, but on the ranch, she was alone, in charge, and that made a difference in her relations with everyone who worked for her. Particularly the guys.
