Free Tenderness by Dorothy Garlock

listen to that inner voice and delighted in
     the wondrous warmth, the sensation of his lips on hers, to the feel of arms encircling her, to his strength, to the masculine
     smell of his skin, to the roughness of his cheeks.
    “Damn! Damn! Damn!” Wade groaned in frustrated agony and pressed his cheek tightly to hers. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do
     that.” His voice was husky with regret.
    “I don’t know what possessed me to let you—” Her lower lip trembled. She was glad he couldn’t see her face. “I’m not… I don’t…
     go around kissing strange men.”
    “I know that,” he said quickly. “It was my fault. I should have resisted. But you’re enough to tempt a saint and I’m sure
     as hell no saint.”
    She was aware of the heavy beat of her heart and his. His mouth had had the bittersweet taste of tobacco. Her nose, when pressed
     to the roughness of his cheek, had caught the whiff of smoke. These scattered thoughts floated through her mind as her eyes
     focused on the space between the horse’s ears and her mind fought for something casual to say.
    “Why don’t you have a mustache?”
    “Too much work.”
    “I don’t like them anyway,” she said lamely, turning her head and moving it slightly away from him.
    Jesse sat still, dazed, aware that Wade no longer held her tightly against him. Coldness was seeping in where she had been
     so glowingly warm before. With shaking fingers she adjusted the wet shawl on her head.
    “Looks like the rain is over.” Wade spoke as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. “That’s the Lesters’ ahead. Grandpa
     put a lantern on the porch.”
    Too late, too late. The refrain echoed in Wade’s brain as he rode home through the rain-soaked woods after he left Jesse at
     the Lesters’. His insides churned and twisted painfully. He couldn’t even excuse himself on the grounds that he hadn’t known
     what was happening, would happen if he kissed her. From the beginning he had known. The first time he had looked at Jesse
     Forbes through the field glasses he had known that he would have to be very careful. And knowing that, he had gone full tilt
     ahead, paying no heed to the warning signals.
    Jesse was so far above him they didn’t even breathe the same air, he reminded himself sternly. His brain knew that, but his
     body and his emotions lacked that understanding. What he needed was to go to Knoxville and visit a woman he knew who was skilled
     in giving him relief. After visiting her, he didn’t give her another thought until time for the next session, and she didn’t
     expect him to.
    The frenzy of his obsession with Jesse frightened him. He had tried all day to analyze his feelings. It was not that he was
     desperate to get her into bed—although he had to admit that he had thought about how it would be to bury himself in the soft
     warmth of her body. It was more than that. Never before had he wanted someone to belong exclusively to
him,
care for
him.
    Even now he could smell the clean, sweet scent of her, see her eyes as calm and serene as a mountain pool one moment and sparkling
     with laughter the next.
    She could destroy you, you idiot!
    Wade was disgusted with himself and vowed to stop thinking about her. He had done foolish things in his life but never any
     quite as foolish as kissing the doctor’s daughter.
    Still, the warmth that had settled inside him and the odd feeling of belonging when she returned his kiss were the most pleasurable
     moments of his life. He allowed himself the luxury of imagining how it would be if she were in his kitchen, standing at the
     stove, waiting for him. She would have a sweet smile on her pretty mouth and her dark hair would be loose and hanging down
     her back.
    Damn, damn. In one short day she had turned his life upside down.
    The smell of coffee roused Jesse. She identified it and became aware that she was snuggled down in Granny Lester’s featherbed.
     She turned on her back and found