Body Language: The Boot Knockers, Book 2 (2 page)

Chapter Two

Ruthie clasped her hands and fought to keep from wringing them. The backstage area was alive with chatter. Excited giggles echoed around her as she waited for the cowboys.

She looked at the other women. They were as diverse as the cowboys on the brochure. Women with every shade of hair and body type huddled together, some talking quietly about what to expect.

With a knot of nausea in her throat, Ruthie didn’t feel like speaking. Besides, when she stepped onto the stage, she would be alone. No one could save her from what she’d chosen to do.

Isabel, the stage manager, buzzed between girls, dashing notes on her clipboard. “You’re up third, Ruthie.”

Nodding, she battled the urge to bolt for the door. Boarding the jet to Texas had given her the illusion she was going on a nice vacation. But once she’d arrived at the ranch and been taken into a private screening room to choose from a selection of cowboys, her real purpose hit hard.

She’d come to find the most sexual pleasure she’d ever known, which would be easy considering she hadn’t found it with her former lovers.

Images of the five cowboys she’d selected revolved through her mind. They were in the audience right now. In a few minutes she’d step onto the stage and they’d fight over who would win her.

She dragged in a wavering gasp just as Isabel announced the first contestant was to take the stage.

Holding her breath with the rest of the women, Ruthie watched from the sidelines as a tall girl with a pretty face and dishwater-blonde hair stood before the cowboys.

Ruthie’s mind clouded, and she stared at her simple, flat leather sandals. How had she gotten here? From the third-grade classroom to a sex club. Her face burned.

By the time she lifted her gaze again, the first woman was coming offstage.

With a cowboy.

Ruthie felt her jaw drop as she came face-to-face with the dashing, muscled man in worn denim, boots and hat. His shirt was blue plaid, sleeves rolled to his elbows, displaying a tattoo of a rodeo belt buckle on his forearm.

“Take good care of her, Elliot,” Isabel said with a grin.

He tipped his hat at Isabel and hooked the woman’s arm more securely over his. He led her through the throng of women and out the side door.

Oh my God. Oh my God.

Ruthie gasped for breath when contestant number two took the stage. She wore ill-fitting clothes that disguised her body. When she took her place in the spotlight, she smiled, and her whole appearance transformed.

“I wish we could hear what they’re saying,” someone beside Ruthie whispered.

Me too.
What should she expect? More Q&A? How would she ever keep her knees from knocking when faced with all that testosterone?

“Get ready, Ruthie. It’s almost your turn.”

The knot in her belly pulled tight, and she was pretty sure she knew what expression she wore. In the classroom, it was one she’d come to recognize early—right before the cleanup.

Contestant number two came off stage, grinning like Miss America and guided by a tanned hunk with his hand on the small of her back.

Ruthie shivered, more aware of herself than ever before. Within minutes she’d be that girl, and she’d have some cowboy’s hand on her.

All OVER me with any luck.

“Ruthie, you’re on!”

Sucking in a deep breath, she stepped onto the stage. Her sandals were almost noiseless on the polished floor. As soon as she stepped into the spotlight, she broke out in a sweat. Her watermelon-colored cotton sundress clung to her damp skin, and she squeezed her fingers together until her knuckles popped.

Her heart throbbed heavily in her ears. Through the glare of lights, she could just make out the line of cowboys. They sat in plush leather chairs with red buttons before them.

Oh my God, I’ve landed on a game show. And I’m the prize.

Her knees wobbled, and she steeled them.

“Howdy, pretty lady. What’s your name?” someone drawled.

She cleared her throat. Hats, man chests and heated gazes. It was too much to digest.

“R-Ruthie.”

Someone whistled, and she felt her temperature shoot up another notch as her cheeks heated.

“She’s a blusher.”

“Hell, yeah.”

“Keep your hands in your laps and your peckers in your pants. Don’t push the buttons yet,” a huge cowboy said quietly.

“What do you hope to take away with you when you leave the Boot Knockers Ranch, Ruthie?” This voice was more serious, and she zeroed in on the speaker.

Her breathing hitched as she drank in his appearance. Red hair, almost too dark to be called auburn, curled around his ears. He lifted a hand and mussed it, causing a bead of perspiration to pop out between her breasts. It slipped into her cleavage, and her nipples puckered.

His jaw was square with a dusting of copper beard scruff, and his mouth was outlined by brackets that told her he hadn’t always had it easy.

She swallowed hard when she met his gaze. It was too difficult to discern the color from this distance, but his eyes might have been dark blue or gray. She didn’t care because the way he looked at her made her think of late-night tumbles and long, searing kisses.

“What do I hope to take away?” she repeated, feeling like one of her students delivering her first speech. What would she say to them to calm their jitters?

Think of the audience in their underwear.

Oh God, that was worse. All that tan, chiseled flesh.

She focused on the auburn-haired man, one of the cowboys she’d actually chosen from the photos. “Pick the ones you’re attracted to,” Holly had instructed her.

When Ruthie responded to his question, her voice sounded like someone else’s—breathy, raspy. “I don’t know what I want to take away, but I know what I’d like to leave behind.”

He cocked his head, giving her heart a flutter. “What’s that, doll?”

Her stomach flipped at the endearment. “I want to leave behind everything I’ve been taught about men and find out for myself what they are.”

Someone hit a button. His chair lit up, and she swung her gaze to the cowboy with a toothpaste-ad smile and all the warmth in his gaze it would take to strip her out of her clothes. Her nipples tightened painfully.

Mr. Auburn-hair punched his button. Light beamed down on him, making his hair glow.

His eyes are gray.

“I want her.” His tone said he was as unmovable as a century-old oak.

The other cowboy shook his head. “Holly said this is ours to fight out, and dammit, I’m winning this hand.”

Ruthie’s eyes went round as Mr. Auburn-hair gained his feet. He towered at a good six-feet-four inches. How would she be able to reach him for a kiss? At a modest five-feet-four, she’d need a step stool.

But oh, she wanted to try. His unsmiling mouth unraveled her.

He locked Ruthie in his gaze, and she suddenly felt like the naked audience had stripped her instead. She squeezed her fingers together, and another knuckle popped. “I’m Damian, and I have a thing for schoolteachers. Pick me, Ruthie.”

How could she argue with that logic, especially when a tornado of hormones was sweeping through her body, wrecking everything she knew about herself?

She felt herself nod, her hair falling like a dark sheet over one eye. “Yes, Damian. I’m yours.”

The next few minutes were a blur as he mounted the stage in one effortless leap and bundled her offstage. The women parted for them, but all Ruthie could concentrate on was the feel of his callused fingers entwined with hers.

She resisted the urge to look down at the intimate meshing of their hands and let him lead her out the side door into the overwhelming heat. It blasted her in the face, and she licked her lips.

“I’m so thirsty,” she said.

Damian looked down at her. She craned her neck to meet his gaze, and a tingle zigzagged through her core and settled between her thighs. When he quirked a smile at her, it was as if he’d tugged a string connected to her pussy. She clamped her thighs together.

“Let’s get you a drink, Miss Ruthie.” His mocking of her role as teacher was utterly erotic coming from his lips. He clasped her hand more tightly and led her away from the auditorium.

Plush grass tickled her feet between the straps of her sandals, and the slight breeze set wisps of her hair dancing. She gathered it off her face, wishing she’d gone for a haircut before coming here. Why Damian would choose her was a mystery, unless he liked the unkempt schoolmarm look.

The buildings were all log-sided with red roofs, charming and inviting.

“We’re in Bungalow 11,” he said, waving toward a row.

Her stomach quivered. “
We’re
in Bungalow 11?”

His expression sent her heart cartwheeling. “Yes. I’d be a total idiot if I let you out of my sight and that ass Blake snatched you up.”

As they reached a big building, he slowed. When he opened the door and guided her through with a hand dangerously close to her buttocks, she could barely form a coherent thought.

“We cowboys call this the grub house. It’s open twenty-four hours a day, as one would expect when we’re eating at all times.” He dropped her a smile that curled her toes and probably her long hair too. “What would you like to drink?”

In college she’d had a spell where she’d gone a little wild without her parents’ rules, and she’d drank every ounce of alcohol she could get her hands on. Now she rarely touched it, but maybe something harder would calm her nerves.

She glanced at the sideboard set up with all types of foods and drinks. No, alcohol wasn’t a good idea. “Lemonade?”

“Good choice.” He tugged her hand, drawing her to the sideboard, where he poured her a tall glass from a pitcher. As he added a few cubes of ice from a silver bucket, she couldn’t stop staring at the sprinkle of red-gold hair on his knuckles.

A throb took up residence between her thighs.

He leaned against the sideboard, long legs extended, amusement in his eyes. “Well, Miss Ruthie, what’s the lesson plan for the day?”

When Damian had told Ruthie he had a thing for schoolteachers, he’d been kidding. He’d despised school and had actually dropped out after eighth grade, mostly because he couldn’t do the work but partly because he couldn’t stay out of trouble.

He did, however, have a thing for
this
schoolteacher.

Her cotton sundress hugged her breasts, which were just the right size to fill his palms. The waist nipped in and then flared around what he thought were fuller hips.

More to hold on to.

His cock did a tango in his jeans. Shifting his weight to ease it, he continued to study her flushed cheeks and dark brown, fever-bright eyes. Attraction sizzled between their gazes.

This was going to be a hell of a week if they were already giving each other that I’m-gonna-peel-you-off-the-ceiling look.

She sipped her lemonade. “Mmm. This is good.”

“Best lemonade ever, I agree. Except maybe the ones you get at the county fair after screaming your head off on a carnival ride.”

She giggled, and he drank in her features. Feminine nose, delicate cheekbones and jaw. Her mouth was wide, her upper lip slightly thinner than the bottom, and she wore a hint of pink lip gloss.

Visions of tying her to the bedposts in Bungalow 11 flashed through his mind. Damn, he wanted to do bad things to that mouth. His cock throbbed in time to his pulse, and he leaned back to give his erection more room.

“Ruthie.” He drew her name out, testing it with his drawl. “What were your parents thinking when they named you that?”

She gulped the rest of her lemonade. “They were probably thinking I’d be the model of loving kindness like the character in the Bible.”

He cracked a grin. “You do seem like a nice girl.” He took the cool glass from her hands and set it aside. Hovering over her, he searched her gaze. She dropped her chin, peering up at him in a way that sent images of her on her knees through his mind.

“I
am
a nice girl.”

“Not too nice, I hope.”

Pressing her lips together, she fidgeted with her hair, which kept falling into her eye. Taking a risk in touching her so soon, he brushed the lock behind her ear.

Dark pink tinged her cheeks. Oh yes, she was a blusher. When he had her in his bed, he’d make sure she was in a constant state of fever.

“My hair’s always falling into my eyes,” she said softly.

Damian leaned away to assess her appearance. Some ladies enjoyed coming here to be pampered. They kept a hair and makeup artist on the premises for just this reason. And more than once Damian had gone into the wardrobe closet and come out with a handful of items for a little lady.

Ruthie shifted from foot to foot. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Come with me.” He wove his fingers through hers again and led her back out into the sunshine. The ranch sprawled before them, rolling hills dotted with livestock. They mostly kept horses, but cows and chickens roamed as well. And the goat stood on top of its wooden shelter, bleating a repetitious tune.

“Where are we going?”

He glanced back at her. “Trust me.”

The main building was a long ranch style, home to several offices as well as the place where makeovers happened. Stopping at the door, Damian turned to Ruthie. He stared into eyes the color of dark, rich coffee. He sagged at the knees to get closer to her.

“Look, you’re beautiful.” He caught a lock of dark brown hair between his thumb and fingers, rubbing back and forth over the silky skein. “But until you feel beautiful, you won’t come out of your shell. And I suspect that’s part of the reason you’re here, right?”

She nodded, lip trapped between her teeth.

He locked his sights on her mouth, an instant inferno raging in his groin. All hell was about to break loose if he didn’t put some distance between them. While she certainly had come to the ranch for a sexy romp with a cowboy, it was too soon.

Even if his body said otherwise.

He reached behind him and located the door knob. Then he pushed the wooden slab open wide, allowing Ruthie to enter first. Holly looked up from her station at the front desk.