The horses Dylan was working with were housed in a maze of corrals and pastures, all feeding into a central alley. Salt and Pepper were in an adjacent paddock, grazing sedately. Ginger was by herself in another.
Dylan lifted the latch. Ginger took the opening he gave her and bolted down the aisleway. She took the first available exit and landed in a high-walled round pen. Dylan stepped in after her, closing the gate. Emily climbed onto the riser, above the pen, to watch.
“Easy, girl,” Dylan said, as the beautiful mustang pranced back and forth, eyeing Dylan nervously all the while. He unfurled a long cloth line and gently threw it in the mare’s direction. Ginger pranced away from it. Dylan pursued, calmly extending the line, forcing Ginger to go away from him again and again.
First in clockwise motion.
Then counterclockwise.
Across the center of the round pen.
Around the sides.
Again and again, they went.
“How long are you going to do this?” Emily asked.
Dylan cast her a look over his shoulder. He raised his hand—Ginger went faster. He dropped his hand to the side, she slowed. “Average time is about six minutes.”
And then what? Emily wondered.
Six minutes later, she found out.
Dylan stopped throwing out the cloth line and simply stood quietly in the center of the pen. Slowly, he turned, so his shoulder was toward the mustang. Head bowed, he waited.
Ginger stood, trembling with nervousness.
Emily wondered what was up now.
Still, Dylan stood, his body quiet, posture relaxed, head down.
Ginger edged closer. Closer still, until her elegant thousand-pound body was right beside him.
Ever so slowly, Dylan turned toward her. Keeping his head down, his gaze on the ground, he murmured, “That’s it, sweetheart. See? I’m not going to hurt you. I’m your friend.”
With exquisite gentleness, he rubbed Ginger’s face, then moved around to stroke the sides of her neck, her back, the vulnerable skin of her stomach, and back around to her hips and flanks. Emily watched, mesmerized, as the once-wild horse leaned into his touch, completely accepting, trusting absolutely.
“That was amazing,” Emily said an hour later, when Dylan led the mustang back to the paddock where Salt and Pepper were pastured. So this was what horse whisperers did. “Do you use the same method every time?”
Dylan nodded, matter-of-fact in his expertise. “The horse has to go away from me before he or she can come back to me.”
“So you drove her away repeatedly,” Emily marveled. “And yet you knew she would come back to you in the end.”
Dylan inclined his head. “It’s basic horse—or herd—psychology.”
To want what you can’t have? To go where you’re not supposed to be? “Or psychology in general.” Emily paused. Suddenly suspicious as her next thought hit, she narrowed her eyes at Dylan. “So I have to ask—is that what you’ve been doing to me?”
* * *
DYLAN STARED AT Emily, hoping the conversation wasn’t headed where it appeared to be. “What are you talking about?” he demanded.
Emily gave Dylan a deliberately provoking look and smiled with all the steely resolve of a Texas belle, born and bred. “You pique my interest,” she observed sweetly. Then she looked at him in a way that made him want to haul her into his arms and kiss her senseless. Which maybe, given the heat between them, was not such a bad idea....
Emily stepped closer yet and continued with a cantankerous toss of her head. “You only let me—or any other woman for that matter—come so close.”
That was true of other women, he thought. Not Emily.
Her soft lips pursed in dismay. “Then you drive her away, again and again.”
Once more, she seemed to be watching and weighing everything he said and did.
“Waiting patiently,” Emily continued. “Knowing that she’ll come back and join up with you in the end, just the way Ginger did.”
If Dylan didn’t know better, he would think it was Emily’s heart that was hurting, instead of her pride. When the truth was, this was about something much more fundamental. He folded his arms and leaned against the fence. “You’re making it too complicated,” he said mildly.
She brushed past him, a censuring light in her eyes, a downward slant to her lips. “I don’t think so.”
He caught her by the arm and swung them both around so fast she stumbled into his chest. His own body humming with the crazy feeling of need running riot inside him, he steadied her, then planted his hands on either side of her and leaned over her, so she was pinned between his body and the smooth rails of the wooden fence.
He let his eyes slide over the inviting curves of her breasts, flat abdomen and sexy, jean-clad legs, before returning to her tousled hair, soft lips and wide blue eyes. “There’s nothing complicated about me wanting you, or what I need,” he told her frankly, not afraid to be bold if boldness was what was called for.
She released a breath. “Which is what exactly?”
Ignoring the flash of indignation on her pretty face, Dylan leaned even closer. He’d lost the battle to be a gentleman, but if nothing else, he would be honest. “To take you in my arms,” he said very, very softly, “and make love to you.”
Before Emily could do more than gasp, Dylan caught her beneath the knees, swung her up into his arms and strode toward the house. Resenting having his integrity and his actions questioned now—especially by Emily, who had spent enough time with him to know better—Dylan continued acting with the total freedom he’d enjoyed his entire adult life.
“What’s complicated,” he told her, as he mounted the steps and carried her on into the house, “is the notion of us being together.”
His point made, that if they so chose, the two of them could do anything they damn well wanted, he set her down inside the foyer.
Not sure when he had ever been so thoroughly exasperated by a woman, he gazed at her. “’Cause there is no way you’re ever going to want what I want—a no-strings affair that lasts as long as we want it to and still allows us to walk away, completely unscathed.”
And that was one heck of a shame....
Sparks gleamed in Emily’s blue eyes. “Want to bet?” she challenged.
* * *
DYLAN THOUGHT SHE was a chicken. That she’d never be wild and reckless and yes—courageous—enough to act on the needs of her body. He was wrong. And she was going to show him.
Giving him no chance to resist, Emily bounded up and leaped into his arms. She landed with her arms wrapped around his neck and shoulders, her legs locked around his waist.
Caught completely by surprise, Dylan stumbled backward, his weight falling against the wall. And then all was lost in the first thrilling rush of freedom and the impact of her lips planted squarely on his. Emily knew he didn’t mean to kiss her back. Any more than she could help kissing him. And somehow that made the culmination of their mutual desire all the hotter.
This wasn’t supposed to happen.
Yet it was.
She wasn’t supposed to be this reckless.
Yet she was.
“Emily. Emily...” Dylan groaned.
The rush of emotion overwhelmed her. In the feminine heart of her, the tingling