Reclaiming the Cowboy. Kathleen O'Brien

lasted forever, for both of them. Of course it did. The river of their passion had flooded behind the dam of separation. Six months of longing, pent up, roiling in powerful currents. Six months of heat and tension and pain.

      Finally, he was empty, but amazingly she still shimmered around him, like a crystal bell that no longer rang but filled the air with an exquisite humming. She hadn’t opened her eyes, and her breath was still shallow.

      His Bonnie. He knew her. Tenderly, he touched two fingers between her legs, closing over the wet heat and coaxing the last invisible tremors free.

      She shuddered helplessly, every sensation written on her beautiful face. He held on, poised above her, until finally, finally, her fierce internal pulses stilled. And then, unable to hold himself up an instant longer, he collapsed onto the bed beside her.

      They lay together, with braided legs and tangled arms, palm against belly, cheek against breast, until the air grew cool around their sweaty bodies. She moved only once, stretching up to lift the glass he kept by his bed and taking a deep drink from it, as if she was parched.

      Then, with a hum of satisfaction, as though the tepid liquid had been sweeter than simple water, she dropped back to his side and laid her head against his chest.

      As he breathed in the daffodil, yellow-sky perfume of her hair, something inside him began to relax for the first time in six months. It wasn’t just sex. Amazing as that had been, this was deeper than sex.

      This was as deep as his soul. He smiled at himself, aware the poet lingered, even now that the animal was sated.

      His soul had come back to him.

      They dozed. Slept, even. Much later, he woke to a dark, frigid room. He closed his hand over her hip, just to be sure she was there. His fingers must have been icy, because she shivered. She must be freezing. They hadn’t even pulled a blanket over them.

      He cursed himself for a selfish fool.

      “I’m sorry. I’ll start a fire.” He raised himself on one elbow, extending his other arm, hoping he could reach the bedside light.

      “Don’t.” She stopped his arm with gentle fingers. “No fire. No lights.” She rolled over, until her slim body was half on top of his. “We can make our own fire.”

      “But...I want to see you,” he said. His voice sounded odd in the dark room. Why didn’t she want him to turn on the lights? The cold had stabbed his chest, and he suddenly felt very afraid.

      Or very angry.

      “I don’t think we should.” She spoke softly, and he felt the motion of her head as she glanced toward the window, as if to check to see if any of the neighbors were awake yet.

      That was all it took. Suddenly, he knew.

      “You’re not home to stay, are you?” Both the anger and the fear dripped from the question like icicles. “You’re going away again.”

      She rolled even closer, until her torso was completely on top of him. Her hands tucked beneath his armpits, as she used her arms to lift her face several inches above his. Her eyes were cool, shining with blue moonlight. Her hair, which he now saw was still dyed that ridiculous shade of auburn-black, dangled like dark silk over her breasts and curled around her nipples.

      In spite of his anger, he felt himself growing rigid all over again.

      “Tell me,” he insisted.

      Slowly, she nodded. “I am going away again. I have to leave at first light.” She paused. “I should go sooner, but...”

      She shifted her weight, and, with the sweep of one pale, graceful leg, she straddled his hips. His erection hardened, readying itself without his permission.

      “But there’s a little more time.” She leaned down and kissed his jaw. “There’s enough time, if you want it.”

      She moved, tilting her pelvis so that she came so close... If she scooted two inches higher, it would be enough. In the old days, he would have cupped her velvet ass with his hot palms and made it happen.

      “Enough for what?” He sounded so cold. He sounded like someone else, someone who didn’t love her. “For one more goodbye tumble?”

      “Time to make love,” she whispered, and the sweet sensuality in that voice was meant for the real Mitch, the old Mitch—not for this scarred and angry man beneath her now.

      “What about protection?” He stared up at her, his face immobile. “Did you bring extra condoms, just in case? I mean, obviously you can’t be sure where I’ve been these six months...who I might have slept with.”

      “Mitch, don’t.” She put her fingers against his lips. “There’s so little time. Don’t spoil it by being angry.”

      “But I am angry.”

      He made a harsh motion under her, and she understood. Tilting to one side, she slid off him and sat on the edge of the bed. For the first time, she tugged at the hem of the sheet and pulled it up to cover her nakedness.

      He stood, ignoring his own exposed body. Nothing there she hadn’t seen a thousand times. She’d seen it, possessed it, maddened it...and then rejected it.

      “I’m going to take a shower,” he said. “If you’re still here when I get out, it had better mean you’re ready to tell me what’s going on. It had better mean you’re ready to stay.”

      She looked at him, her expression numb and slack with pain. “I can’t stay. You know that.”

      The disappointment— He shook his head roughly. Disappointment? What a laughable word that was for the lava spill of hot fury and pain cascading through him now! Like any volcanic eruption, it left only a blasted devastation behind.

      “But if you’re gone,” he continued in that same stranger’s voice. “If you’re gone, Bonnie, don’t ever come back.”

      She whitened, whiter than the moonlight, whiter than the sheet. She stood, the bedclothes trailing behind her, and moved toward him. “You don’t mean that, Mitch.”

      “The hell I don’t.”

      She was close enough now he could see her eyes were filled with tears. Well, so was every single goddamn vein in his body. Tears were for children. They didn’t solve anything. They didn’t change anything.

      “You can’t play with my life this way. If you have to go, then go. But don’t ever show up here like this again, looking for a midnight romp—or whatever it is you were after.”

      She flinched, and he had a sudden terrible thought. Had she run out of funds? Was she alone out there, on the run, without food or shelter, or—

      “There’s money,” he said matter-of-factly. “It’s in my dresser. Top drawer. You can take it all, if you—”

       “Money?”

      Without warning, she reared back and slapped him. Hard. The crack of her hand across his cheek rang through the room like a gunshot.

      He stood there a second, feeling the stinging ripple across his skin, abnormal waves of heat against the frigid air.

      Then, laughing blackly, he put his hand on the bathroom door.

      “Goodbye, Bonnie,” he said.

      * * *

      “YOU OKAY, HON? Anything wrong with those eggs?”

      The snub-nosed, friendly waitress hovered over Bonnie, metal coffeepot in hand, frowning down at her uneaten breakfast with a maternal worry, which was ironic, really. Even though the two were probably about the same age—mid-twenties—right now Bonnie felt about a hundred years older than anyone in the restaurant.

      “No, no, they’re great.” Instinctively, Bonnie flipped over the paper place mat she’d been doodling on. Her Florentine morning-glory