Beneath the Stetson by Janice Maynard

processes. She was aware that Gil watched her, hawk-like, his features masked in the semidarkness. His back was to the window, so while he could look his fill of her nakedness painted in lunar glow, she was less able to gauge his mood.
    She lifted a hand and let it fall. “You’ve destroyed me,” she said, the words slurred. Her orgasm had been intense, unprecedented. To realize that he could draw such a response from her was daunting. What if tonight’s affair ruined her for other men?
    When he touched her again, she flinched.
    Laughing softly, he spread her legs and positioned the head of his sex at her core. “I want you to remember every second of this night,” he said hoarsely. “Because I’m going to make love to you until neither of us can remember our names.”
    Bailey believed him implicitly. Heat radiated from his big body, warming her chilled skin. Now that her pulse had settled back to normal, the room was cool.
    Gently he stroked her swollen folds with his shaft. She was so sensitized that the caress was almost too much. Incredibly, as he brushed her intimately, her body began to thrum again with the need for him, the urgency to have him inside her.
    Suddenly, desperately, she wanted to turn on a light. She wanted to catch every moment of the insanity, to revel in every nuance of expression that crossed his face as he pleasured both of them.
    Her breath caught when he cupped her bottom and canted her hips. “Now,” he promised, the single syllable guttural. “Now, Bailey.”
    He was thick and hard. Her flesh yielded to his penetration slowly. On the heels of her earlier climax, this claiming was overwhelming. She shook her head from side to side, incredulous that such feelings were real. Nothing in her past had prepared her for Gil.
    He held her tenderly as he took her with the confidence of a man who knew what he wanted. What she wanted. Kisses interspersed with raw lunges that took him all the way to the mouth of her womb. His arms quivered as he kept his weight from crushing her into the bed.
    She wrapped her legs around his waist, feeling the power, the potency. Her fingernails dug into his shoulders, marking him as hers. She could fall in love with him so easily. .. For many weeks she had watched him from afar, seeing the respect people afforded him, witnessing the joy in his son’s face, understanding the position and influence Gil wielded in the community.
    Tonight, though, her feelings went far beyond admiration. Gil had taken her heart. Perhaps he didn’t even know it. Perhaps it didn’t even matter. For a stolen moment in time the only real measure was how they each gave and received pleasure.
    She clung to him as he thrust wildly, his force shaking the bed. A tendril of heat curled in her lower abdomen, spread throughout her pelvis and burst into full flame as she pitched over a sharp edge in the midst of Gil’s hoarse shout of completion.
    * * *
    They must have dozed in the aftermath. When she opened her eyes, the moon had shifted and was barely visible in the corner of the window. The room was quiet. Gil lay half on top of her, his face buried in the sheet. Despite the chill in the air, they were both sticky with sweat.
    She eased to one side, wincing when he muttered in his sleep. Stealthily, she moved an inch at a time until she could free herself and slide from the bed. After using the bathroom and freshening up, she pondered the possibility of a hot shower. The lure was impossible to resist. A thick terry-cloth robe hung on the back of the door, so she dropped it on the floor in arms’ reach and turned on the water.
    Soon, steam filled the roomy enclosure. Clearly, Gil had spent money on modernization at some point. Bailey applauded his choice. The bold turquoise and amber tiles reminded her of Spain’s artistic influence in Texas architecture.
    The water was hot and reviving, chasing the chill from her bones. She didn’t bother with her hair, keeping it mostly dry. Though Gil