One of a Kind: Lionhearted / Letters to Kelly

“Who, me?” Leo exclaimed with total innocence.

Janie’s hands fumbled with the apron. Her heart ran wild. He hadn’t left. She’d thought he was gone, and she hadn’t bothered with her appearance. He was still here, and she looked like last year’s roast!

“You’ll drop that apron, Janie,” Leo scolded playfully.

Janie glanced at him as she retied the apron. “You can talk,” she chided. “I hear your housekeepers keep quitting because you untie aprons constantly! One kept a broom handle!”

“She broke it on my hard head,” he said smugly. “What are you making, Hettie?”

“Rolls,” she said. She glanced warily at Leo. “I can’t make biscuits. Sorry.”

He gave her a hard glare. “Just because I did something a little offbeat…”

“Carried that little chef right out of his restaurant, with him kicking and screaming all the way, I heard,” Hettie mused, eyes twinkling.

“He said he could bake biscuits. I was only taking him home with me to let him prove it,” Leo said belligerently.

“That’s not what he thought,” Hettie chuckled. “I hear he dropped the charges…?”

“Nervous little guy,” Leo said, shaking his head. “He’d never have worked out, anyway.” He gave her a long look. “You sure you can’t bake a biscuit? Have you ever tried?”

“No, and I won’t. I like working here,” she said firmly.

He sighed. “Just checking.” He peered over her shoulder fondly. “Rolls, huh? I can’t remember when I’ve had a homemade roll.”

“Tell Fred to invite you to supper,” Hettie suggested.

He glanced at Janie. “Why can’t she do it?”

Janie was tongue-tied. She couldn’t think at all.

The lack of response from her dumbfounded Leo. To have Janie hesitate about inviting him for a meal was shocking. Leo scowled and just stared at her openly, which only made her more nervous and uncertain. She knew she looked terrible. Leo wanted a woman who could do ranch work and cook, but surely he wanted one who looked pretty, too. Right now, Janie could have qualified for the Frump of the Year award.

She bit her lower lip, hard, and looked as if she were about to cry.

“Hey,” he said softly, in a tone he’d never used with her before, “what’s wrong?”

“Have to let this rise,” Hettie was murmuring after she’d covered the dough and washed her hands, oblivious to what was happening behind her. “Meanwhile I’m going to put another load of clothes in the washer, darlin’,” she called to Janie over her shoulder.

The door into the dining room closed, but they didn’t notice.

Leo moved closer to Janie, and suddenly his big, lean hands were on her thin shoulders, resting heavily over the soft denim. They were warm and very strong.

Her breath caught in the back of her throat while she looked up into black eyes that weren’t teasing or playful. They were intent, narrow, faintly glittering. There was no expression on his handsome face at all. He looked into her eyes as if he’d never seen them, or her, before—and she looked terrible!

“Come on,” he coaxed. “Tell me what’s wrong. If it’s something I can fix, I will.”

Her lips trembled. Surely, she could make up something, quick, before he moved away!

“I got hurt,” she whispered in a shameful lie. “When the calf dragged me around the corral.”

“Did you?” He was only half listening. His eyes were on her mouth. It was the prettiest little mouth, like a pink bow, full and soft, just barely parted over perfect, white teeth. He wondered if she’d been kissed, and how often. She never seemed to date, or at least, he didn’t know about her boyfriends. He shouldn’t be curious, either, but Marilee had hinted that Janie had more boyfriends than other local girls, that she was a real rounder.

Janie was melting. Her knees were weak. Any minute, she was going to be a little puddle of love looking up at his knees.

He felt her quiver under his hands, and his scowl grew darker. If she was as sophisticated as Marilee said she was, why was she trembling now? An experienced woman would be winding her arms around his neck already, offering her mouth, curving her body into his…

His fingers tightened involuntarily on her soft arms. “Come here,” he said huskily, and tugged her right up against his tall, muscular body. Of all the Harts, he was the tallest, and the most powerfully built. Janie’s breasts pressed into his diaphragm. She felt him tauten at the contact, felt his curiosity as he looked down into her wide, soft, dazed eyes. Her hands lightly touched his shirtfront, but hesitantly, as if it embarrassed her to touch him at all.

He let out a soft breath. His head was spinning with forbidden longings. Janie was barely twenty-one. She was the daughter of a man he did business with. She was off-limits. So why was he looking at her mouth and feeling his body swell sensuously at just the brush of her small breasts against him?

“Don’t pick at my shirt,” he said quietly. His voice was unusually deep and soft, its tone unfamiliar. “Flatten your hands on my chest.”

She did that, slowly, as if she were just learning how to walk. Her hands were cold and nervous, but they warmed on his body. She stood very still, hoping against hope that he wasn’t going to regain the senses she was certain he’d momentarily lost. She didn’t even want to breathe, to do anything that would distract him. He seemed to be in a trance, and she was feeling dreams come true in the most unexpected and delightful way.

He smiled quizzically. “Don’t you know how?”

Her lips were dry. She moistened them with just the tip of her tongue. He seemed to find that little movement fascinating. He watched her mouth almost hungrily. “How… to… do what?” she choked.

His hand went to her cheek and his thumb suddenly ran roughly over her lips, parting them in a whip of urgent, shocking emotion. “How to do this,” he murmured as his head bent.

She saw the faint smile on his hard mouth as his lips parted. They brushed against hers in tiny little whispers of contact that weren’t nearly enough to feed the hunger he was coaxing out of her.

Her nails curled into his shirt and he tensed. She felt thick hair over the warm, hard muscles of his chest. Closer, she felt the hard, heavy thunder of his pulse there, under her searching hands.

“Nice,” he whispered. His voice was taut now, like his body against her.

She felt his big hands slide down her waist to her hips while he was playing with her mouth in the most arousing way. She couldn’t breathe. Did he know? Could he tell that she was shaking with desire?

Her lips parted more with every sensuous brush of his mouth against them. At the same time, his hands moved to her narrow hips and teased against her lower spine. She’d never felt such strange sensations. She felt her body swell, as if it had been stung all over by bees, but the sensation produced pleasure instead of pain.

He nibbled at her upper lip, feeling it quiver tentatively as his tongue slid under it and began to explore. One lean hand slid around to the base of her hips and slowly gathered them into his, in a lazy movement that made her suddenly aware of the changing contours of his body.

She gasped and pulled against his hand.

He lifted his head and searched her wide, shocked green eyes. “Plenty of boyfriends, hmm?” he murmured sarcastically, almost to himself.

“Boy… friends?” Her voice sounded as if she were being strangled.

His hand moved back to her waist, the other one moved to her round chin and his thumb tugged gently at her lower lip. “Leave it like this,” he whispered. His mouth hovered over hers just as it parted, and she found herself going on tiptoe, leaning toward him, almost begging for his mouth to come down and cover hers.

But he was still nibbling at her upper lip, gently toying with it, until he tilted her chin and his teeth tugged softly at the lower lip. His mouth brushed roughly over hers, teaching it to follow, to plead, then to demand something more urgent, more thorough than this slow torment.

Her nails bit into his chest and she moaned.

As if he’d been waiting patiently for that tiny little sound, his arms swallowed her up whole and his eyes, when they met hers, glittered like candlelight from deep in a cave.

His hand was in her ponytail, ripping away the rubber band so that he could catch strands of it in his strong fingers and angle her face just where he wanted it.