Twice Kissed - Lisa Jackson [63]
She moved against him, moaned at his ministrations, and wanted more. Her fingers curled in the soft ground, the wind sighed overhead, and she began to writhe.
God help me, she thought wildly, perspiration mingling with the dewy rain. A rumble swept over the hills, and, as the first spasm hit her, she cried out, her voice low, guttural, unlike her own. And then he came to her. Shedding his clothes as easily as he had shucked his hands-off persona, he kicked off boots and jeans, threw off his T-shirt, and slipped upward, through the bridge of her knees until he was kissing her on the lips again and his hard thighs pressed hers farther apart.
“Maggie,” he said, looking into her eyes as she felt his erection, hard and thick, brush against her. “I didn’t mean…Oh, God…I…” His gaze caught in hers. The rain started to fall in fat drops, and before another word was spoken, he thrust. Deep. Hard. To a point that pain blinded her and she gasped.
“Oh, hell, I—”
She moved then. By feminine instinct. And he groaned, the apology that was forming on his lips cast to the wind. His arms surrounded her, and he drew her close, his lips claiming hers in anxious, wild abandon as he withdrew and thrust, over and over again, easing the pain, creating a whirlpool of hot, wet need that surpassed the ache.
And she moved with him. Her body slick with rainwater, her blood on fire, her mind splintering as faster and faster he stroked, pushing her—them—into a place she’d never been. She cried out as the first convulsion ripped through her. A loud primal roar answered her. Thane’s face contorted as if in pain. He collapsed atop her spent, sweating, and gasping. She held him tight, tears glistening in her eyes, raindrops collecting on her skin.
He lifted his head and kissed her tears away. A tortured shadow passed through his gray-blue eyes. “For the love of God, Maggie Reilly,” he said as rain ran down his chin and dripped on her bare breast, “what the hell am I gonna do with you?”
“Funny, I was wondering the same thing.” She offered a tentative smile.
He laughed then and kissed her again. Despite the rain, the wind shimmering in the trees, and her lingering doubts, she wound her arms around his neck, opened her mouth, felt his body rub against hers and, closing her eyes, she gave herself to him all over again.
“Okay, so I get it,” Mary Theresa confided a couple of weeks later as she wheeled the BMW into the parking lot of Roberto’s restaurant. Olive trees shaded the long low building, and a laurel hedge separated the street from the parking lot. Traffic whizzed by on the busy street.
“Get what?” Maggie grabbed her purse and apron, then shouldered open the passenger-side door of the BMW. A gust of hot air shot through the interior of the car, stealing the breath from the air conditioner.
“Why you’re so crazy for the cowboy.” As the radio blasted, Mary Theresa, wearing her favorite pair of designer sunglasses, scrounged in her purse, retrieving a pack of cigarettes and her lighter.
Maggie’s heart jolted. The last person she wanted to know that she was involved with Thane Walker was her sister. She remembered Thane’s comments about Mary Theresa. She’s almost as pretty as you. The one man in the universe who thought so. She warmed inside at the compliment, remembered making love to him in the rain, or in the barn, or anywhere they happened to be, then shook her head as she stepped out of the car. “I’m not crazy about anyone.”
Mary Theresa clicked her lighter shut and drew in hard on her Virginia Slim.
“Oh, yeah, like I haven’t seen that look before. You’re in love with him all right.”
“In love?” Maggie repeated, upset. How could she have been so transparent? “That’s nuts, M.T.”
“Maybe, but there it is,” she said in a cloud of smoke. Angling the rearview mirror down to catch her reflection, she patted at the edge of her lips where her peach-colored gloss had found the nerve to smudge. She opened her mouth in a perfect oval,