Long, Tall Texans: Calhoun by Diana Palmer

into my room without knocking," she whispered after a long minute, her voice sounding husky and choked.
    "I did knock. You didn't hear me."
    She bit her lower lip, turning her gaze to the yellowish-brown pastures around them.
    "Abby, for God's sake, don't make such an issue out of it,"

    he said quietly. "Would you rather I'd left you like that? What if Justin had come to wake you, or Lopez?"
    She swallowed. "Well, I guess they'd have gotten an eyeful," she said, her voice unsteady. After a minute, her face flushed, she turned toward him and asked plaintively, "Calhoun...! wasn't uncovered all the way, was I?"
    He looked into her eyes and couldn't quite manage to look away. She was lovely. He reached out involuntarily and touched the side of her neck, his fingers tender and exquisitely arousing.
    "No," he managed, watching the relief shadow her eyes as he told the lie with a straight face. "I buttoned you back up and tucked you in."
    She let out a hard breath. "Thank you."
    His fingers moved up to her cheek. "Abby, have you ever let a man see your breasts?" he asked unexpectedly.
    She couldn't handle a remark that intimate. She dropped her eyes and tried to catch her breath.
    "Never mind, tenderfoot," he chided softly. "I can guess."
    "You mustn't talk like that," she whispered.
    "Why?" he mused, tilting her chin up so that her shocked eyes met his. "You're the one trying to grow up, aren't you? If you want me to treat you like an adult, Abby, then this is part of it."
    She shifted nervously. He made her feel so gauche it was ridiculous. She twisted her purse out of shape, afraid to meet the dark eyes that were relentlessly probing her face.
    "Don't," she pleaded breathlessly, and her eyes closed.
    "Are you really afraid of me?" he asked, his voice deeper, silkier.
    He touched her mouth with a lean forefinger and she actually jumped, her eyes flashing open, all her hidden hungers and fears lying vulnerable there. And that was when his self-control fell away. She was hungry for him. Just as hungry as he was for her. Was that why she'd been so restless, because she'd become attracted to him and was trying to hide it? He had to know.
    She couldn't answer him. She felt as if he were trying to see inside her mind. "I'm not afraid of you. Can't we go?"
    "What are you trying to do?" he whispered, leaning closer, threatening her lips with his. "Block it out?
    Pretend that you aren't hungry for my mouth?"
    Her heart went wild at the soft question. If he didn't stop, she was going to go in headfirst. He could be playing, and to have him tease her without meaning it would kill her. Her fingers touched his shoulder, pushed experimentally against the hard muscle under the soft fabric of his suit. They trembled there as her eyes suddenly tangled with his and her mouth echoed the faint tremor of her body.
    He stared at her. It was a kind of exchange that Abby had never experienced before. A level, unblinking, intense look that curled her toes and made her heart race. Very adult, very revealing. His dark eyes held hers, and his lean fingers traced up and down her soft throat, arousing, teasing. His hard mouth moved closer to hers, hovering above it so that she could feel his warm, minty breath on her parted lips, so that she was breathing him.
    "Cal...houn," she whispered, her voice breaking on a hungry sob.
    She heard his intake of air and felt his hand curl under her long hair, powerful and warm, cradling her nape to tilt her head up.
    "This has been coming for a hell of a long time, baby," he whispered as his head bent and he started to give in to the hunger that had become a fever in his blood. "I want it as much as you do...."
    He leaned even closer, but just as his hard mouth started down over hers, before his lips touched her pleading ones, the sound of an approaching vehicle broke them apart like an explosion.
    Calhoun felt disoriented. He looked in the rearview mirror and saw one of the ranch trucks coming up behind, but it took a