He was no longer on top of her, but was asleep beside her. She missed the weight of him pressing down on her. She missed how his heart felt beating against hers, but most of all she missed the feel of him being inside her.
Remnants of ecstasy were still trickling through her when she thought of what they’d done and all they’d shared. Being gripped in the throes of orgasm after orgasm for several long moments was enough to blow anybody’s mind and it had certainly done a job on her. And the way he had looked down at her—during those times he wasn’t kissing her—had sent exquisite sensation after exquisite sensation spiraling through her. Even with the bandages covering his chest and parts of his back, she had felt him—the hardness of his shoulders and the way the muscles in his back had flexed beneath her fingertips.
There was no way she could or would forget tonight. It would always be ingrained in her memory despite the fact that she knew he probably would not remember a single thing. That thought bothered her and she fought back the tears that threatened her eyes. They should be tears of joy and not of sorrow, she thought. She had loved him for so long, but at least she had these memories to cherish.
The rain had stopped and all was quiet except the even, restful sound of Derringer’s breathing. Day was breaking and she had to leave. The sooner she did so the better. She could just imagine what he would think if he woke and found her there in bed with him. Whatever words he might say would destroy the beautiful memories of the night she intended to keep.
And her guess was that someone—any one of his brothers, sisters or cousins—might show up any minute to check up on him. They, too, would be shocked as heck to find her there.
She slowly eased out of bed, trying not to wake him, and glanced around for her clothes. She found all the items she needed except for her panties. He had taken them off her while she was in bed, so chances were they were somewhere under the covers.
She slowly lifted the covers and saw the pair of pink panties were trapped beneath his leg. It would be easy enough to wake him and ask him to move his leg so she could get them, but there was no way she could do such a thing. She stood there a moment, hoping he would stir just a little so she could pull them free.
Lucia nervously gnawed on her bottom lip, knowing she couldn’t just stand there forever, so she quietly began getting dressed. And only when the sun began peeking over the horizon did she accepted that she had to leave quickly … without her panties.
Glancing around the room to make sure that was the only thing she would be leaving behind, she slowly tiptoed out of the room, but not before glancing over her shoulder one last time to look at Derringer. So this was how he looked in the early mornings. With his shadowed face showing an unshaven chin while lying on the pillow, he looked even more handsome than he’d been last night.
He would probably wonder whose panties were left in his bed, but then he might not. He bedded so many women that it wouldn’t matter that one had left a pair of their panties behind. To him it might not be any big deal. Probably wouldn’t be.
Moments later while driving away, she glanced back in her rearview mirror at Derringer’s home, remembering all that had taken place during the night in his bedroom. She was no longer a virgin. She had given him something she had never given another man, and the only sad part was that he would never, ever know it.
Two
Some woman had been in his bed.
The potent scent of sex brought Derringer awake, and he lifted his lids then closed them when the sunlight coming through his bedroom window nearly blinded him. He shifted his body and then flinched when pain shot up one of his legs at the same time his chest began aching.
He slowly lifted his head from the pillow, thinking he needed to take some more pain pills, and dropped it back down when he remembered he might have taken one too many last night. Megan would clobber him for taking more than he should have, but at least he’d slept through the night.
Or had he?
He sniffed the air and the scent of a woman’s perfume and of sex was still prevalent in his nostrils. Why? And why were clips of making love to a woman in this very bed going through his brain? It was the best dream he’d had in years. Usually a dream of making love to a woman couldn’t touch the reality, but with the one he’d had last night, he would beg to differ. He could understand dreaming about making love to a woman because it had been a while for him. Getting the horse business off the ground with his brother Zane, his cousin Jason and their newfound relatives, those Westmorelands living in Georgia, Montana and Texas, had taken up a lot of his time lately. But his dream had felt so real. That was one hell of an illusion.
Nevertheless, he thought, stretching his body then wishing he hadn’t when he felt another pain, it had been well worth the experience.
He reached down to rub his aching thigh, when his hand came in contact with a lacy piece of material. He brought up his hand and blinked when he saw the pair of lace bikini panties that carried the feminine scent he had awakened to.
Pulling himself up in bed, he studied the underthings he held in his hand. Whose were they? Where had they come from? He sniffed the air. The feminine scent was not only in the panties but all over his bed as well. And the indention on the pillow beside him clearly indicated another head had been there.
Monumental panic set in. Who the hell had he made love to last night? Since now there was no doubt in his mind he’d made love to someone. All that pleasure hadn’t been a figment of his imagination, but the real thing. But who had been the woman?
He closed his eyes and tried to come up with a face and couldn’t. It had to have been someone he knew; otherwise, who would have come to his house and gotten into his bed? He had messed around with some pretty brazen women in his lifetime, but none would have dared.
Hell, evidently one had.
He opened his eyes and stared at the wall, trying to recall everything he could about yesterday and last night. He remembered the fall off Sugar Foot’s back; there was no way he could forget that. He even remembered Zane and Jason rushing him to the emergency room and how he’d gotten bandaged up and then sent home.
He definitely recalled how his brother and cousin kept saying over and over, “We told you so.” He remembered that after he’d gotten into bed, Megan had stopped by on her way to the hospital where she worked as an anesthesiologist.
He recalled when she’d given him his pain medicine with instructions of when to take it. The pain had come back sometime after dark and he’d taken some of the pills.
Hell, how much of the stuff had he taken? He distinctly recalled the E.R. physician’s warning that the painkillers were pretty potent stuff and had to be taken when instructed. So much for that.
Okay, so he had taken more pain medicine than he was supposed to. But still, what gave some woman the right to enter his home and take advantage of him? He thought of several women who it could have been; anyone who might have heard about his fall and decided to come over and play nursemaid. Only Ashira would have been bold enough to do that. Had he slept with her last night? Hell, he sure hoped not. She might try to pull something and he wasn’t in the market of being any baby’s daddy any time soon. Besides, what he’d shared with his mystery woman had been different from anything he’d ever shared with Ashira. It had been more profound with one hell of a lasting effect.
He then remembered something vital. The woman he’d slept with had been a virgin—although it was hard to believe he could remember that, he did. And it was pretty far-fetched to think there were still any of them around in this day and time. But there was no way in hell he could have imagined her innocent state even with a mind fuzzy with painkillers. And he knew for certain the woman could not have been Ashira since she didn’t have a virginal bone in her body. Besides, he had a steadfast rule to leave innocents