Lone Star Winter. Diana Palmer

it works even better than the chemical ones.”

      The subject of natural gardening and cattle raising supplied them with topics all the way to Houston, and Lisa thoroughly enjoyed herself. Here was a man who thought like she did. Walt had considered her organic approach akin to insanity.

      The parking lot at the arts center was full. Cy managed to find one empty space about half a city block away.

      “Now that’s a full house,” he remarked as he helped her down from the vehicle and repositioned her coat around her shoulders. “This thing sure is soft. Is it wool?” he asked, smoothing over it with his fingers.

      “It’s a microfiber,” she told him. “It’s very soft and warm. The nights are pretty chilly lately, especially for south Texas.”

      “The weather’s crazy everywhere.” He nudged a long, loose curl from her braided hair behind her ear, making her heart race with the almost sensual movement of his lean fingers. “I thought you might wear your hair loose.”

      “It’s…difficult to keep in place when it’s windy,” she said, sounding and feeling breathless.

      His fingers teased the curl and slowly dropped to her soft neck, tracing imaginary lines down it to her throat. He could feel her pulse go wild under his touch, hear the soft, broken whip of her breath at his chin. It had been far too long since he’d had anything warm and feminine this close to him. Restraints that had been kept in place with sheer will were crumbling just at the proximity. He moved a full step closer, so that her body was right up against him in the opening of her coat. His hands were both at the back of her neck now, caressing the silky skin below her nape.

      “I haven’t touched a woman since my wife died,” he said in a faintly thick tone, his voice unusually deep in the silence. The distant sound of cars and horns and passing radios faded into the background.

      She looked up, straight into his green eyes in the glow from a streetlight, and her heart raced. That look on his face was unfamiliar to her, despite her brief intimacy with her late husband. She had a feeling that Cy knew a lot more than her husband ever had about women.

      Cy’s thumbs edged around to tease up and down her long, strained neck. Her vulnerability made him feel taller, more masculine than ever. He wanted to protect her, care for her, watch over her. These were new feelings. Before, his relationships to women had been very physical. Lisa made him hungry in a different way.

      She parted her lips to speak and he put a thumb gently over them.

      “It’s too soon,” he said, anticipating her protest. “Of course it is. But I’m starving to death for a woman’s soft mouth under my lips. Feel.” He drew one of her hands to his shirt under the jacket and pressed it hard against the thunderous beat of his heart.

      She was more confused than ever. This was totally unfamiliar territory. Walt had never said anything so blatantly vulnerable to her, not even when they were most intimate.

      His free hand went around her waist and drew her slowly closer, pressing her to him as his body reacted powerfully to the touch of her soft warmth. He lifted an eyebrow and smiled wickedly at her frozen expression.

      “Why, Mrs. Monroe, you’re blushing,” he chided softly.

      “You wicked man…!”

      His nose brushed lazily against hers in a tender nuzzling. “I’ve probably forgotten more about women than Walt ever knew in the first place,” he said. “You don’t act like a woman who’s ever known satisfaction.”

      That was so close to the truth that it hurt. She stiffened.

      He lifted his head and searched her eyes. His own narrowed. He moved her lazily against him and felt her breath catch, felt her hands cling to his lapels as if she were drowning.

      “Oh…no,” she choked as a surge of pure delight worked its way up her spine. She hated herself. Her husband was only buried two weeks ago…!

      While she was thinking of ways to escape, and fighting her own hunger, Cy backed her very gently against the big utility vehicle and edged one of her long legs out of his way to bring them into more intimate contact.

      “This is the most glorious thing a man and a woman can do together,” he murmured as his mouth lowered to hers. “He cheated you. I won’t. Open your mouth.”

      Her lips parted on a shocked little gasp, and his mouth ground into them, parting them. He wasn’t hesitant or tentative. He demanded, devoured. His mouth was a weapon, feinting, thrusting, biting, and all the while her body rippled with a thousand stings of new pleasure as she clung hard to his strength. Sensations she’d never known piled one upon the other until a hoarse moan tore out of her strained throat and went up into his mouth.

      Another minute and he knew he wouldn’t be able to pull back at all. He had her hips pinned with his, and his body ached for satisfaction.

      With a rough curse he dragged his head up and moved away from her. She looked at him with dazed eyes in a flushed face, her mouth swollen from his kisses, her body shivering with new knowledge.

      He drew himself up to his full height. His eyes glittered like green diamonds in a face like stone. He had to fight to get a normal breath of air into his lungs.

      She tried to speak, but she couldn’t manage even a whimper. Her body was still flying, soaring, trembling with little shivers of pleasure that made her knees weak.

      He reached out and caught her small hand in one of his big ones, linking their fingers. “We’d better go in side,” he said quietly.

      “Yes.” She let him pull her away from the truck and lead her toward the arts center. She was amazed that she could walk at all.

      Chapter Four

      Turandot was beautiful. Lisa cried when the tenor sang “Nessun Dorma,” one of her favorite arias. The sets were elegant, colorful, the Chinese costumes glittery and resembling fantasy more than reality. The dragon was a masterpiece of sound and fury and color. All in all, it was a magnificent production, and Puccini’s glorious music brought it alive. Lisa had never seen an opera except on the public broadcasting television channel. She knew that she’d never forget this for as long as she lived, and every time she remembered it, she’d re member Cy sitting beside her in the dark.

      Meanwhile, Cy was cursing himself silently for what had happened in the parking lot. It was months too soon for that. She was a pregnant, newly widowed woman and he’d let his emotions get out of control. His jaw tautened as he remembered the silky feel of her in his arms. He wanted to take care of her, and it looked as though she was going to need protection after all—from him.

      Somehow he was going to have to get them back on a simple friendly footing. It wouldn’t be easy. He had no idea how she felt about what had happened. She sat quietly beside him, obviously enjoying the opera. She even smiled at him from time to time. But if she was angry, it didn’t show. He remembered her soft moan, her clinging arms. No, he thought, she’d gone in headfirst, too, just as he had. But he had regrets and he suspected that she did, as well. He had to draw back before he put the delicate new feeling between them at risk. Lisa was off-limits in any physical way, and he was going to have to remember that.

      Lisa saw his scowl and wondered if he had regrets about what had happened. Men got lonely, she knew, and he was a very masculine sort of man to whom women were no mystery. He was probably wondering how to tell her that it wasn’t about her a few minutes ago, that any woman would have produced that reaction in a hungry man.

      She would save him the trouble, she decided, the minute they started home. He’d already done so much for her. She couldn’t expect him to take over where Walt had left off; not that Walt had ever really felt passion for her. Walt had enjoyed her, she supposed, but there hadn’t been any sizzling attraction between them. It shamed her to admit that what she’d felt in the parking lot with Cy had been infinitely more pleasurable than anything she’d ever done with her late husband. She didn’t dare think about how it would