Snowflakes and Stetsons Read online

  Lucas grabbed Drizzle’s reins then walked around the block to halt behind Rosa’s shop. “Stay here with Drizzle,” he told Dog.

  When Dog whined in complaint, Lucas made a stabbing gesture with his forefinger. “You are in charge of Drizzle. I can take care of myself.”

  “Well, I used to be able to,” he amended as he strode off. Now that he had become acquainted with Rosalie Greer everything had turned upside down. His wants and needs had changed. Lucas was headed for trouble and he knew it…and trouble was a shapely blonde with blue-violet eyes and lips as sweet and intoxicating as wine.

  “Double damn, Burnett,” he muttered at himself. “You really are turning into a Yuletide sap.”

  An unexpected rap sounded on Rosa’s door. Alarmed, she grabbed the derringer from the dresser drawer. She intended to be prepared if Fred Garner showed up to take up where he’d left off.

  Clutching her robe tightly around her, she aimed the weapon at whoever stood on the other side of the door. A Christmas shooting was the very last thing she wanted but she refused to be manhandled by one of the miscreants from Wrong Side who convinced himself that she owed him sexual favors.

  Mustering her courage, she whipped open the door and aimed her derringer at the man’s chest. Her mouth dropped open when she recognized Lucas lurking in the shadows. “Is something wrong?” she asked as she stepped aside to let him enter.

  His dark gaze scanned her apartment, surveying her expensive furniture. She imagined he was comparing the items to his homemade furnishings and setting up a few more roadblocks as to why he should avoid associating with her.

  But then, he is here, she reminded herself. Surely that meant something, didn’t it? Was she getting to him the way he had gotten to her? Was it as unnerving and unfamiliar for him as it was for her?

  Although Rosa didn’t refer to herself as a man-hater, she had become a man-mistruster over the past eight years. Until Lucas had pulled her from a snowdrift and warmed her up—inside and out. Nowadays her thoughts drifted to him while she worked, while she lay alone in bed. She thought of him entirely too often!

  Careful, Rosalie, you’re going to get your heart broken for Christmas if you don’t watch out.

  “I wanted to make sure Fred didn’t stop in to retaliate after you rejected him…?. Nice place, by the way.” His midnight-colored eyes resettled on her gaping robe that revealed the semitransparent lace on the bodice of her nightgown. “Nice lingerie, too. Did you design that?”

  Heat suffused her face and desire coiled deep inside her when he stared at her with those penetrating obsidian eyes. Her silent warning about getting her heart broken flew right out the window. Rosa could almost guarantee she was going to do something reckless and impulsive. She had never wanted a man the way she wanted the raven-haired ex-Ranger who could set fire to her blood with one simmering stare.

  And why couldn’t she have him, if only for one night? She was a grown woman and she didn’t have to answer to a protective father or brother. She made her own choices and she was prepared to live with the consequences.

  Before Rosa could stop herself—and she probably wouldn’t have even if she could have—she walked right up to Lucas, glided her arms over his broad shoulders and said, “I want you for Christmas.”

  “You sure about that?” he murmured as his arms came around her waist to draw her full length against him.

  She focused on his sensuous lips then met his smoldering gaze. “Absolutely certain,” she assured him breathlessly.

  He lowered his head, his mouth a tormenting hairbreadth away from hers. “Then you can have me, Rosalie. As many times as you please… Ouch!”

  The derringer she still held in her hand clanked against the side of his head when she wrapped her arms tightly around his neck.

  “Give me that piddly thing,” Lucas said, taking it from her fist to tuck in the waistband of his breeches. “You need something bigger and more powerful than that for protection.”

  His heart nearly cracked open like a walnut when she tilted her head back, letting her silver-gold hair cascade over her shoulders. She smiled impishly up at him and said, “I don’t need a derringer when I have you—”

  His mouth came down on hers with explosive need. Raw hunger pummeled him like a sledgehammer. Lucas groaned as he deepened the kiss and crushed her lush body to his. “I think I’d like that fancy robe and negligee better if you were out of them,” he murmured against her earlobe.

  She tensed momentarily as he walked her backward to the bedroom. Lucas halted to stare into her wide amethyst eyes.

  “Jubal is here, in your head, isn’t he?” he asked quietly.

  She nodded then managed a faint smile. “He was, but he’s gone now. In fact, mother’s recent letter said a debutante’s father ran him out of town and told him not to come back if he valued his life. Now I can visit mother without dealing with him. He’s gone for good.”

  “Good riddance to him.” Lucas skimmed his lips over her creamy cheek, loving the feel of her delicate skin.

  “Lucas?”

  “Mmm?” He kissed her eyelids and the tip of her nose, quickly losing interest in conversation.

  “I don’t expect him back. Ever.” She stared earnestly at him. “You overshadow him, Lucas. You are everything he can never be.”

  Right there and then Lucas vowed that he would take all the time Rosa needed tonight. Whatever she wanted, however much she needed, he would give her. Even if impatient need gnawed at him, which it had begun to already.

  On that dedicated vow, Lucas angled his head to savor the texture of her dewy lips. Gently, he drew her against him then hooked his thumb inside the silky robe and sent it gliding into a pool at her bare feet. When he skimmed his hand over the peak of her breast, he felt her tremble in his arms and prayed it wasn’t fear but rather awakened desire that assailed her. She arched into him and moaned, so he assumed he had given her pleasure.

  Difficult though it was, Lucas released her and stepped back. He held her gaze as he fumbled to unbutton his shirt. “If you’ve changed your mind, this is the time to say so.”

  To his relief, she shook her head. Silver-blond hair shimmered in the lantern light and lay temptingly against the full swells of her breasts. She reached out to rake her nails over his bare chest and he swore his legs were about to fold up like a tent. Hell, he couldn’t even breathe normally while her hand swept down his breastbone to the dark furring of hair that disappeared beneath his belt buckle and double holsters.

  “You’re driving me crazy, you know that, don’t you?” he wheezed as her index finger trailed along the band of his breeches to set aside the derringer.

  “Good to know,” she said with a wicked smile. “I wasn’t sure anything less than a flying bullet could destroy the self-control of a legendary ex-Ranger.”

  “You can.” Lucas was beginning to realize this lovely female was the one temptation in life he couldn’t resist.

  He hooked his arm around her waist and tumbled with her onto the frilly bed with its silky sheets. She snickered in playful amusement…until he slid the thin straps off her shoulders to flick at her breasts with his tongue. A wobbly sigh escaped her lips and Lucas smiled in masculine satisfaction when she snuggled closer. He wanted nothing more than to satisfy Rosa’s needs and desires this night.

  And double damn that Jubal whoever-he-was. That bastard had better not get in Lucas’s way tonight or he’d have to hop an eastbound train to look the man up then shoot him down.

  His vindictive thoughts scattered when Rosa glided her hand beneath the band of his trousers to discover he was unmistakably hard and fully aroused. Her long lashes swept up and she peered at him in surprise.

  “You have the magic touch, Miss Secret Saint Nicholas,” he teased playfully. “Can I remove my breeches or do you want to do it for me?”

  Rosa grinned mischievously as she unfastened the placket of his trousers. “I think I’ll design breeches for men that are faster and easier to remov
e.”

  “You do that,” he said huskily. “Or maybe kilts and togas will become stylish for Western wear. I’m all in favor—”

  When Rosa lowered her head to brush her warm lips over the hard length of his arousal she heard the air gush from his lungs in a whoosh. She couldn’t believe she had become so bold and daring. She wanted to explore every inch of his masculine flesh, to make Lucas moan with pleasure until the want of her destroyed his willpower.

  She could tell Lucas was trying to be deliberate and careful with her because he thought that cursed Jubal Hawthorne still might be skipping around in her head. But the bastard was long gone now and she had eight years of unfulfilled need roiling inside her. She had shed her inhibitions and she wanted Lucas to release his, too—

  “Awk!” Rosa chirped in surprise when Lucas flipped her onto her back and loomed over her like the dark, ruggedly handsome angel he was.

  “Lady, if you keep touching me like that it is going to get you into serious trouble,” he rumbled huskily.

  “Promises, promises,” she taunted, amazed at the flirtatious side of her nature that had sprouted from nowhere.

  “You are full of delightful surprises,” he murmured, studying her as if she were an unexpected gift.

  Her breath stalled in her chest when his hand tunneled beneath the hem of her nightgown, moved over the V between her legs, up her belly and ribs, and then encircled the tips of her breasts. Fire leaped in her bloodstream and she struggled to restart her heartbeat after he tugged the garment over her head and tossed it toward the dresser—missing it by a mile.

  His dark, intense gaze swept over her in masculine appreciation. “My imagination didn’t do you justice, Rosalie. I’ve wanted to do this since I stripped you down to your undergarments the night of the storm.”

  Then he brushed his clean-shaven cheek against her breast and his hand glided downward to trail from hip to kneecap then back up again. Inexpressible desire blazed inside her as he kissed and caressed her so slowly and tenderly that she wanted to demand that he make the burning ache go away—immediately.

  Sweet mercy! She never dreamed hungry passion could become instant obsession. She wanted him as close as he could get, wanted to hold him, touch him as intimately as he was touching her.

  Repeatedly, he brought her to the crumbling edge of breathless need then gradually withdrew. Then he built the white-hot crescendo once again and she felt her body quivering as he teased her with his fingertips. Desperate, she clutched at his shoulder, demanding an end to this erotic torment. He had driven her as close to crazy as she had ever been and she wanted him so desperately that she shook with uncontrollable desire.

  “Come here,” she gasped and writhed and burned with the most indescribable sensations imaginable.

  “Not yet, but soon, sweetheart.”

  When he clasped her by the hips and propped her against the headboard she started to ask what he was doing. But then he lowered his head between her legs and she felt his tongue and lips skimming her tender flesh. Rosa was unprepared for the burst of flames that scorched her, unprepared for the ravenous need clamoring through her. She swore she had been set on fire and had breathed her last breath as her body exploded with dozens more unbelievable sensations.

  And then he pulled her beneath him and drove into her with long, slow, penetrating thrusts. Spasms of wild pleasure bombarded her as he moved above her, setting a hypnotic cadence that sent her spiraling from one dizzying pinnacle of rapture to the next.

  Rosa hung on to Lucas for dear life as the world wobbled on its axis. When she heard him groan and felt him shudder above her, she wrapped her arms and legs around him and held on as if her very life depended on it. She knew without question that she had fallen in love with her dark angel. She wouldn’t have given her heart and body to him if she weren’t in love with him. For Rosa, it was all or nothing.

  When Lucas eased down beside her, Rosa half collapsed. “If I die from too much amazing pleasure and I very well could,” she panted raggedly, “promise you will deliver the toys and gifts.”

  He chuckled softly then pressed his full lips to hers. “Comanche promise, blondie… That good?”

  She nodded and smiled, but exhaustion overtook her immediately. She slumped against his shoulder. His devastating lovemaking and the hustle and bustle of last-minute tasks for the town-wide celebration caught up with her. Her lashes fluttered against her flushed cheeks and her breath came out in a quiet sigh. She reached over to clasp Lucas’s fingertips, giving them an affectionate squeeze that meant I love you, though she doubted he could interpret it, even though he was fluent in English, Spanish and the Comanche dialect.

  A few minutes later, when Lucas knew Rosa had fallen asleep, he levered onto his elbow to study her exquisite face, surrounded by a halo of curly blond hair. A moment of regret threatened to overwhelm him, but he cast it aside. He knew he was Rosa’s first experiment with passion. She was definitely his first time with an innocent. He had no right whatsoever to be grinning in triumph because he knew her more intimately than any man alive. But he liked knowing she belonged to him, if only for one night.

  Speaking of which…Lucas inched away to retrieve his breeches—ones he had been eager to shed in his haste to bury himself in Rosa’s welcoming warmth. In Rosa’s silky arms, he had discovered the difference between rare, mind-boggling, bone-melting passion and meaningless sexual encounters.

  Silently, he dressed, then tiptoed from her bedroom. He needed to leave before someone noticed his horse and dog waiting at the back door of the shop. If gossip started flying her reputation would be in shambles, whether she was the Darling of Downtown or not. Just look what had happened to Quin Cahill’s family when folks began speculating on why his brothers and sister weren’t coming home for Christmas.

  You should have considered her reputation before you came upstairs. He scowled at himself.

  Yet he knew a team of wild mustangs couldn’t have dragged him away from her doorstep tonight. He had no self-restraint whatsoever when it came to Rosalie. He might have brought her to his cabin during the blizzard so she could thaw out but he was the one who had thawed out—mentally and emotionally. She made him want things he had never dared to expect from life.

  Lucas decided to blame his lack of willpower on Christmas. His wish list had begun and ended with the want of that intriguing, violet-eyed blonde who had sworn him to secrecy. Then she had introduced him all over town, held his hand, kissed him on the cheek in front of her friends and acquaintances and made him feel as if he mattered to her. He had allowed her to drag him into society though he’d sworn up and down he would avoid it.

  Now they shared another secret and he’d gone places he hadn’t planned to go—and he meant that in the most intimate sense.

  “What are you two looking at?” he muttered at Dog and Drizzle.

  He swore his four-legged companions were silently admonishing him. More likely, it was his own conscience trying to nag him to death. Lucas knew he had made a wildly reckless mistake tonight. Yet it wasn’t shame and guilt that hounded him now. It was the lingering memories of Rosa’s delightfully playful nature and the astonishing passion that had burst to life between them.

  “I’ll feel guilty tomorrow, when I regain my good judgment,” he said to the darkness as he rode home. “But definitely not tonight.”

  The glorious sensations of passion he had discovered while he was spiraling in Rosa’s magical embrace filled his mind with wonder and warmed his body during the cold trek home.

  Chapter Five

  Rosa had seen nothing of Lucas since the night of the party when he had shown up unexpectedly at her apartment door—and introduced her to the incredible world of amazing sensations.

  The very thought caused her face to flush with heat.

  “You feeling okay, Rosa?” Melanie asked as she ironed the ruffle she had sewn onto the gown she was making.

  Rosa waved her arm toward the wood stove in the workroom. “Standing
too close to the fire.”

  She’d been too close to the fire all right—and the name of the flame was Lucas Burnett.

  “Cyril and I are going to the church social this evening,” Melanie said conversationally then she displayed a wide grin. “If you’re attending, bring that handsome Lucas Burnett with you.”

  Rosa shrugged as casually as she knew how. “I invited him, but I’m not sure he can make it.”

  “You should know you two are the talk of the town,” Melanie teased, her hazel eyes twinkling mischievously. “’Course, there were a half dozen eligible bachelors in Town Square, wondering why you favored the local recluse with your companionship and not them. Hmm…I’m wondering the same thing. What is going on with you two? And do not tell me it’s gratitude on your part.”

  “I have told each of those men that I am not good marriage material,” Rosa commented as she carefully cut the pattern for the satin gown she was making for one of her friends.

  Melanie sniffed caustically. “Right. Too old. Too involved in starting your business. Too set in your ways and too opinionated.”

  “I am all those things,” Rosa admitted honestly then hunkered over the cutting table to focus on her task.

  Melanie studied her all too closely. “Then why appear in public with the ex-Ranger?”

  Rosa set aside her scissors and worked the kinks from her back. “Because Lucas needed to mingle with society instead of spending all his time with Dog and the horses.” Liar, she thought to herself. You wanted to be with him and the party was the perfect excuse to invite him. “Besides, it’s the Christmas season. I wanted him to get into the spirit of the holidays.”

  “Uh-huh,” Melanie said and smirked. “So that’s why you two were holding hands and you placed a couple of pecks on his cheek? You were feeling the Christmas spirit, too. Right?”

  Rosa stared her frizzy-haired assistant squarely in the eye. “I was trying to let everyone in town know that Lucas is a valuable, accepted member of our community. Also, I am greatly appreciative that he saved my life. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be standing here on Christmas Eve afternoon, listening to you torment me instead of finishing that dress for one of our most impatient and particular patrons.”