bed. Outside, the wind strained against the branches of the towering aspens, and the old house creaked in a familiar nightly ritual that had never failed to soothe her—until tonight.
“I told Vicki I would give her the news as soon as you told me, but I don’t have the heart to wake her,” she said as she slipped beneath the already tumbled covers.
“I’ll tell her. It’s my responsibility.”
“But not your fault.”
His control slipped long enough to reveal a muscle ticking along his jaw. His voice, too, held a harsh note of self-censure. “It was my call, my decision to breed the mare.”
“Of course you bred her,” she hastened to assure him. “Goldie was a beautiful animal with excellent bloodlines. There isn’t a rancher in the state who wouldn’t have bred her.”
“Tell that to my daughter.” He plowed a hand through his already rumpled hair.
“I will, even though I have a feeling she’ll figure that out for herself. Vicki has your instincts, your love of animals. She’ll make a marvelous rancher.”
His eyes flashed. “The hell she will.”
Karen drew a calming breath. “Please, let’s not get into another argument about our conflicting views on gender-specific careers.”
Cassidy felt rage tearing at the edges of his calm, the strangling, desperate kind that always came when his thoughts threatened to slide into a pit of icy blackness where some nameless, faceless terror was always waiting.
“If that means I don’t intend to allow my daughter to burn herself out doing a man’s job, then, yeah, there’s no point in arguing, because it’s a done deal,” he said with more force than finesse.
“No,” she said quietly, distinctly. “It isn’t. Victoria will have the same unlimited choices I had growing up.”
“Yeah, and we all know how well you turned out, don’t we, Dr. Sloane?”
“Damn you,” she whispered, her voice as raw as a blizzard wind. “I don’t deserve that.”
“No, you’re a great doctor. Everyone says so.”
She breathed in sharply, then let the air out in a slow stream. “What’s happening to us, Cassidy?” she asked, looking at him beseechingly.
“We’re worried about Vicki, that’s what’s happening.”
She shook her head. “No, it’s more than that,” she said after a long moment of deliberation.
“You’re just upset.”
“Why are you shutting me out when we both need each other so much?”
Need wasn’t an emotion he allowed. Not for a long, long time. “Karen, I’m not exactly in a mood for a deep philosophical discussion at the moment.” His voice came out hard and clipped, and he couldn’t make himself say the words to ease the hurt now shimmering in her eyes like unshed tears. But it was the tears quivering on the tips of her lashes that broke him.
“Damn.” He was moving before he thought, rearing up to close the distance between them, reaching for her even as he crashed his mouth down on hers.
He absorbed her unique taste, part sweet, part tart, and felt her lips soften. In the back of his mind he knew what he was doing wouldn’t solve a thing, but the need to try one more time to bind her to him was too strong. But even as he argued that he was fighting for what was his by law and by need, he struggled against a feeling of revulsion at his own behavior. With a groan, he dragged his mouth from hers.
“No, don’t stop,” she pleaded, her voice thick with tears.
“It tears me apart when I hurt you,” he rasped, blood surging to his loins. “I just can’t seem to stop doing it.”
“I know.” Reaching up, she traced the line of his mouth with her fingertip, and heat shot through him. “I wish I’d declined the invitation to that stupid party.”
“Goldie would still be dead, party or no party.”
“Yes, but the party reminded us both of the things we said to each other that night at the cave entrance.”
“You mean the things I said, don’t you?”
She nodded. “They hurt, Cassidy. I can’t deny that.”
He felt an odd twisting in his gut. “Would you rather I lied?”
She shook her head. “I can’t go on feeling guilty forever.”
“I want you home, Kari. That’s not going to change.”
He saw the play of emotions in her eyes, bled a little when the glow left.
“Where does that leave us now, at this moment?” she asked, her chin angling defiance and strength.
“The same place it always does in this room. I want you.”
“All right.”
“Just like that?”
Her smile was ragged, but it still had the power to draw him closer. “No, not just like that. I want you, too.”
Worn out from so much talk, he captured her finger between his teeth and used his tongue to lave the tip. Gentleness was a skill he’d only marginally mastered, but he steeled himself to go slowly. For her sake, he told himself. Not because he was hoping against hope that this time his will would prevail against the pill keeping her safe from his seed.
Yet it felt as though all the demons of hell were riding him hard, urging him to love her so completely she wouldn’t have the strength to leave him. Helpless against a building need, he found her mouth again, this time to plunder and possess. Instead of retreating, she rose to meet him, her hands linking behind his neck to tug him closer. His breath mingled with hers, great warm gasps of desperate need, and soft, eager cries poured from her throat, exciting him into a fever only she could break.
Shaken, he ended the kiss, only to have her begin her own seduction of his mouth. His control teetered on a hot, honed edge, then shattered at the first tentative touch of her tongue against his lips. With a sound that was both anger and surrender, he opened his mouth and welcomed her pillaging tongue.
When he couldn’t stand the torment any longer, he dragged his mouth from hers in order to concentrate on the warm, sweet treasure at the base of her neck. She tasted of bath soap and smelled delicious, exactly as a woman should.
His woman, he wanted to shout as he felt her fingers skimming his shoulders. As she arched her neck and pressed her breasts against his chest, flames licked at him, hotter than the man-made hell where he’d spent most of his life. In her kiss was the promise of release he craved—not only from his physical torment, but also from the talons of guilt and regret that never stopped clawing at him, no matter how desperately he tried to make his life count for something.
Karen writhed under him, her hands seeking and desperate, her strangled cries escalating. Again and again he filled his mouth with her, then tried to slake his pain and anger and shame by worshiping her breasts. Warm, full breasts tipped with hard little nubs so eager to be suckled, so temptingly sweet, even through the silky flannel of her gown.
“Yes, oh yes!” she urged, her voice thick with a passion that spurred his own onto higher ground. “Faster. Go faster.”
“Easy,” he managed to say between burning kisses, his body riding a dangerous ridge between pain and pleasure while he groped with the hem of the nightie.
“No, I want to feel you inside me,” she urged, twisting and bucking like a wild thing.
“Oh, baby, you feel good,” he murmured, pulling her down onto the bed. He leaned over her and brought their hips closer together. She gasped when his engorged body probed hers, and he felt her welcoming heat through a thin layer of fabric.
He