Her skin grew damp and hot and pliable under his hands, his tongue; in a sweet, warm rush she dissolved for him, crying out in the darkness. And again, yet again…Spun crystals exploded behind her eyes, and moments later she clung to him, exhausted, exhilarated, unbearably replete. And yet lonely…

Craig gently pushed back her dampened hair, his touch soothing her until her heartbeat again quieted. “You are my incredibly beautiful lady,” he murmured.

She had the terrible urge to bury her face in his shoulder in shyness. “No.”

His lips brushed her cheek. “Yes. So responsive. So lovely. So special,” he said softly. “And your body always gives me this foolish little argument when I want to love you a certain way. It’s sheer pleasure for me just to watch you, little one, don’t you know that? I’m here. I’m with you…There’s nothing wrong, Sonia.”

“I never thought anything we did was wrong,” she whispered back, and sighed, her eyes closing as she snuggled against his chest. “Craig?”

“Hmm?” He pulled the sheet up to her chin, then slid lower to curl more closely around her.

“You’re a very special man,” she remarked.

His lips curled in a smile.

She reached up, sharing a kiss of smiles before curling close to him again. Her eyes closed. Her mind was in a desultory presleep haze after being so very thoroughly loved. Lingering sensations of pleasure floated all around her, not just from his lovemaking but from now simply being held and stroked before she fell asleep.

Part of that sleepy euphoria was the intimate feel of his hardness against her abdomen. It was his turn, she thought groggily, and fought to stay awake. Her hand reached out to caress him.

His hand laced loosely into hers and tucked it in a warm, secure embrace…and she fell asleep.


***

Squinting, Sonia bent forward until her face was an inch from the bathroom mirror. There. Right there at the outside corner of her eye. A wrinkle was definitely settling in. Particularly when she squinted with that determined expression.

When you were worried about finding flaws, it was amazing how fast they all jumped at you. One sunburned nose, one cracked toenail, knobby knees…and when Sonia turned around and held a hand mirror to the light, she saw a single white hair in the middle of her crown. Her fingers raced to pluck it out.

She lost it.

Wiggling her towel-clad bottom, she frantically combed through the curls on her crown again. The damn thing was elusive, but she knew it was there. She plucked the nasty thing, wincing.

“Sonia?” Two sharp raps echoed on the bathroom door. “You’re actually up? You still want to go for a ride this morning?”

“Just give me five minutes,” Sonia sang out, her cheerfulness volubly denying that it was unusual for her to be up at six in the morning. Actually, she’d been awake since five. Worrying.

At the speed of sound, she rushed back to the bedroom, drew on old pink jeans with a pastel plaid blouse, riding boots and belt, and then lingered another few seconds in front of the dresser mirror. She would not have been surprised to see some drastic signs of deterioration. A single white hair didn’t count.

The last she knew, her husband had been attracted to her-wildly so. Nothing had seemed wrong between the two of them even yesterday. Nothing had seemed wrong in a month. And there was nothing drastically unusual if a husband and wife didn’t share equal pleasure during a single night’s encounter. For heaven’s sake, it couldn’t always be even-Steven. The next night simply made up for that. It was part of a marriage, a give and take.

Always, Craig had been an inventive, giving, passionate lover…maybe with a slight inclination toward insatiability. Since he’d built up that same slight inclination in her, they’d just never had a problem. Well. Some slight problems controlling themselves occasionally…

Sonia chewed absently on her lip, staring at the mirror, and then hurried from the room. Last night…Her cheeks flushed as she waved a good-morning to Charlie in the kitchen and headed out the back door. Last night her husband had proved to be a most tender, erotic lover, forcing unexpectedly uninhibited responses from her, all but demanding the most incredible, intense pleasure…

And yet he hadn’t taken his own. Craig had never been a selfish lover, but after more than a month Sonia had been frankly expecting…a quickie. A rather explosive quickie. Followed by long, leisurely “seconds.” Sonia knew her lover quite well. Abstinence was not in his vocabulary; he’d probably never even heard the word, and she suddenly saw that for a month he’d been…different. Very small things, really. The P.I.’s receipt he’d kept from her, the occasional withdrawn look in his eyes, the way he’d all but handcuffed her to his side at work…

You’re making far too much of it, she chided herself as she strode outside. In the distance, she could see the two Andalusians pawing the ground. Craig was holding them by the reins, murmuring to them with his back to her. He wore old jeans that fit snugly around his hips, and his checked shirt rippled over his shoulders as he moved. The look of the man was downright erotic even in the broad light of day. When he turned to her, his smile would have aroused sexual feelings in a nun.

You’re making too much of it, she repeated to herself, and acknowledged wryly that she would undoubtedly continue to make too much of it. She hadn’t been able to shut off her intuition since five this morning. She had great plans for growing old with this man, and she knew darn well that a single white hair and one pending wrinkle weren’t about to turn him off, but something, dammit, was wrong.

Mostly in play, but partly to test his response, she sassily patted his fanny on the way to being offered a leg up.

As if to assure her everything was absolutely normal, he then forced her to lean down from her horse to accept a kiss. “You sleep all right?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Someone woke me up in the middle of the night,” she announced.

“No kidding?”

“You wouldn’t believe what he did to me.”

Belle snorted impatiently. Craig ignored the mare, grasping the reins with one hand as his free palm roamed over Sonia’s thigh and ribs, undoubtedly checking for signs of injury. “You don’t seem any the worse for wear. What happened?”

Such innocence, such big blue eyes filled with innocence…and such a lusty smile. Sonia, there isn’t a damn thing wrong with anything, she told herself. “Just a pirate in the night,” she mentioned blithely. “He took my virtue but left the jewels. Not to worry.”

“What virtue?”

She leaned over her horse’s mane. “The same virtue I had plenty of, Mr. Hamilton, until I met you. Now, are you going to continue to tease me in front of this yard full of ranch hands, or are we going to have a dead race for the hills?”

Belle snorted noisily, her choice obvious. Both Black Lightning and Sonia’s Belle had become used to their morning ride.

“I would prefer to tease you,” Craig said lazily as he put his foot in the stirrup. “For that matter,” he added gravely, “your cheeks look windburned, honey. I’d advise you to force your pirate to shave next time. And I certainly hope that no other portion of your body has that same reddish-”

It took a great deal to make Sonia color. To the sound of his low laughter, her thighs pressed tight against her mare’s flanks, and in seconds the wind was whipping through her hair. “Two bits says I’ll beat you,” she called over her shoulder.

Belle was bursting with energy, all power and grace beneath her, responsive to her suddenly ebullient mood and the wonderfully cool morning and the path they both knew so well.

Belle was responsive…but not as fast as Craig’s Black Lightning. It hardly mattered, since she knew Craig would let her win. In moments, he was beside her, matching her pace with his own, his hair whipped back sleek by the wind, his shirt flattened against his tautly muscled chest.

The long green slopes fell behind them, until their house and the ranch buildings became small dots on a distant landscape and the river looked like a silver fluorescent rope in the sunlight. They didn’t slow the horses until the trail started to climb and twist. They were both out of breath by then, ready for quieter sport.

The southwestern corner of the ranch was more arid than the rest. They inevitably rode toward those acres. The verdant green and gentle roll of the major portion of the ranch was nature’s gift, where cattle or horses could graze and the land held a richness of water and trees in the foothills. Not here.

Some would have called this a wasteland, where pockets of wind had found a home for centuries and erosion had taken its toll. Here, there was oil beneath the stubborn rock, oil Craig had tapped when he was seventeen to secure his heritage, but no one traversed the land now except the two of them. Through a narrow canyon, the trail wandered south, and suddenly they rode high up along a ridge. A stark gulch beneath them reflected myriad strata of blue and green and yellow in the sunlit rock. Wildflowers stubbornly insisted on growing, tucked in crevices here and here. The beauty was in the wildness, in the stretch of endless sky and space and loneliness.

An eagle soared overhead, undoubtedly searching for a very foolish rabbit for its breakfast. Sonia exchanged smiles with Craig. It was always a good omen when they spotted an eagle. They watched it soar and dip and then wing off with a mournful scream of frustration.

“We haven’t camped out here in a long time,” Craig said idly.

“Too long,” Sonia agreed, as she stroked her mare’s sleek neck.