Their gazes met and held. Niall eventually sat up slowly and struggled for something to say. But before she could, his eyes flickered over her. His nostrils flared. Desire bloomed in her lower belly and spread, making her sex ache with a dull throbbing pain when she realized her legs were completely spread while she faced him. She knew how much she hungered for him, but in that moment the magnitude of her primitive need felt overwhelming in its intensity.
His eyes skated back up to her face.
Niall wondered what she wouldn’t have given at that moment to have Vic kiss her once again, touch her, thrust his cock deep inside her to apply friction to that elemental ache. The last time they made love seemed like a distant, longed-for memory that she grasped at so frequently nowadays that it had started to take on the quality of a dream.
He seemed to hesitate for several seconds, as if he wanted to say something . . . as if he wanted to do something. But then he’d inhaled sharply and turned away.
And even that poignant, brief encounter had become nothing but a memory.
Niall began to cook more and more frequently for the family and farmhands once she had convinced Meg that she actually enjoyed it and wasn’t just being polite. She’d always been a good cook, and missed it sorely while she’d lived in Riverview Towers. She couldn’t help but be flattered by Tim, Andy, and Tony’s eager faces and exuberant praise over her cooking, or the fact that Donny planned his visits and work schedule in the stables to coincide with the meals that she prepared.
The few times that Vic did put in an appearance at the large oak table in the farmhouse kitchen, he remained silent while everyone else gushed about her homemade biscuits and sausage gravy, her marinated roast chicken and potatoes, or some other dish. But Niall couldn’t help but take some satisfaction from the fact that Vic always ate everything on his plate and, more often than not, fought Tim or Andy or Meg for seconds. She was glad when Meg or Tim questioned him about how things were going at the theater or about his writing, because she felt too self-conscious about doing it when everyone sitting at the table knew that Vic disapproved of her presence there.
She felt like a thief, stealing glances at Vic covertly on those occasions. It heartened her to see that although his hair was still shaggy he at least wasn’t quite as thin as he had been when she first arrived. He was shaving again. The tan that he acquired so easily from riding or working on the farm made him even more magnetically attractive.
Niall found herself staring at his bare forearms while he ate, thinking they were a relatively safe target for her covetous glances. She’d never have guessed before she met Vic that a man’s bare, muscular arms or big, capable-looking hands could be so sexy. For Niall, however, Vic’s forearms and hands rivaled the sight of his long, hard thighs or his tight ass in his well-worn jeans. Well—they took a close second.
And beggars couldn’t be choosers.
Once he’d caught her staring and abruptly paused in the motion of cutting his pork chop. She’d looked up guiltily to find him gazing directly at her. His bronzed skin made his light eyes even more compelling in their impact. Niall froze in her chair like a small animal that had just come into the sight of a predator. She couldn’t read the inexplicable expression in Vic’s eyes in that moment. By the time he made his characteristic rolling motion with his jaw and glanced down, Niall was left breathless with confusion and longing.
He’d left the kitchen early that night, surprising Meg when he turned down a serving of her homemade strawberry shortcake.
Niall watched a few seconds later through the window over the sink as Vic backed out of the driveway. She’d tried not to think of where he might be going, but she was about as successful at that as she was at torturing herself by imagining what he was doing with Eileen Moore on those nights when he stayed in Chicago.
About two weeks after Niall’s arrival, Donny had innocently forced Vic to acknowledge her while they were eating dinner. It was a sunny, comfortably warm summer evening. The fact that it was a Friday night and that Vic was home from Chicago gave a festive air to dinner that night. Niall had spent a good part of the afternoon, after she’d returned from class, cleaning the enormous barbecue in the backyard, which Meg admitted hadn’t been used once since they’d moved into the farmhouse. When Niall’d finally cleaned the monstrous iron contraption to her satisfaction, she’d put it to good use by preparing some juicy steaks, corn on the cob, and baked potatoes on it. They were in the midst of enjoying their summertime feast when Donny suddenly sprung his unexpected question to Niall.
“Want me to teach you how to ride this summer, Ms. Chandler?”
Niall glanced up in surprise, noticing how Vic’s angular jaw paused in the motion of chewing his steak.
“Uh . . . I don’t know about that, Donny,” she equivocated with a nervous laugh. The idea of riding one of those beautiful animals fast and free undoubtedly appealed to her. But that was like saying that the thought of flying in a plane sounded exciting and wonderful when one was scared stiff of takeoff. It didn’t matter how great step two seemed if one was terrified of step one.
“Don’t you think she could learn on Velvet . . . or maybe Aster?” Donny asked Vic pointedly.
Niall waited in growing discomfort as Vic took his time chewing and swallowing. When he finally transferred his gaze to her, it made her feel hot and flustered.
“You’ve never ridden before, have you?”
She shook her head slowly. He’d asked her if she’d ever ridden once while they were dating in Chicago last year and Niall had told him that she hadn’t, then neatly changed the subject.