Authors: Candace Schuler
Tom stood stock-still, watching her, unable to move, unable to respond, unable to speak, as dumb-struck as a wet-behind-the-ears, peach-fuzz cowboy who’d just been tossed on his head by a bronc and still hadn’t got his breath back yet.
She set his Stetson on her head, adjusting it so that it set, low and sexy, over her forehead, then tilted her head and looked up at him from under the brim. The invitation in her eyes was blatant, unashamed, unwavering, with nothing held back, nothing hidden. She smiled seductively, slowly, and licked her lips again.
Damn, she was…she was… Hell, he didn’t know
what
she was!
Except gorgeous.
And hot.
And so damned sexy it made his insides ache and his palms sweat.
One look, that’s all it had taken. One long, slow, hot-eyed look from a tall, cool glass of water, and he’d wanted to grab and take and possess. He
had
grabbed and taken and—very nearly, anyway—possessed. And that surprised him. Shocked him, actually. He wasn’t normally a man with a short fuse. Ask anybody who knew him and they’d tell you Tom Steele was one careful hombre. He took his time. He considered his options. He weighed all the pros and cons. Steady, that was Tom Steele. Not a man to rush off half-cocked, or to get all hot and bothered and lose his head over a pretty little piece of tail.
Except that he had.
He stood there in the parking lot of Ed Earl’s, in the pink-neon glow of those ridiculous flamingos, his heart thudding against the wall of his chest, his cock full to bursting against the fly of his jeans, and his hands… Good Lord, his hands were actually trembling.
He unclenched his fists, flexing his fingers like a gunfighter about to take that long walk down the middle of a dusty street, and took a couple of deep, deliberate breaths in a effort to bring down his heart rate. It didn’t work.
“Ah, the hell with it,” he muttered, and reached for the door handle of the car. The only thing that was going to slow his heart rate was the exhaustion that came after a fast, furious bout of hot, sweaty sex. Maybe.
She turned toward him as he slid behind the wheel, reaching out to run her hand down his arm.
He didn’t even look at her. “Keep your hands to yourself, Slim,” he ordered, tight-lipped, as he fished around in his shirt pocket for the key. “And don’t say a word.” He jammed the key into the ignition and gunned the engine to life. “Not a word until we get to the motel.”
Roxanne gave a soft gurgle of laughter, a low, throaty sound of feminine triumph and challenge, and settled back into her seat, her hands folded demurely in her lap. It was only five miles to the motel and judging by the rooster tail of dust and gravel he’d left in Ed Earl’s parking lot, they’d be there in less than five minutes. She could wait that long. Barely.
4
T
HE FACADE
of the Broken Spoke Motel was cheap Hollywood Western, with an unpainted barn-board exterior, a split-log hitching rail running along the front, and horseshoes bracketing the room numbers on each of the doors. A red-neon wagon wheel, one spoke seeming to swing back and forth as it flashed on and off, sat perched atop a pole in front of the motel office, right above the unblinking No Vacancy sign. A bank of vending machines stood on the cracked concrete apron just outside the office door, in clear sight of whoever was manning the registration desk. At the moment it was empty, with a hand-lettered sign advising would-be guests to ring for assistance.
Tom pulled into the first open parking space in the lot, jammed on the parking brake, and was out of the car almost before the engine stopped idling. His boot heels sent up little puffs of dust as he rounded the hood, purpose in every deliberate step, burning lust in his eyes, one thing on his mind. Roxanne sat in the passenger seat in stupefied delight and watched him come to her, come
after
her, thrilled beyond belief to be the object of such single-minded desire. With a sense of delighted amazement, she realized she could actually feel her nipples, rigid against the satiny fabric of her leopard-print bra, could feel the wetness soaking the matching fabric between her legs, could feel the blood pounding through her veins. She had never been so aware of her body, never felt so sensitized, so aroused, as if every nerve ending was on red alert. She was tingling all over…her lips…her fingertips…her thighs…every part of her quivering with anticipation and wanton, intemperate need, making her wonder how she was going to manage to stand up and walk to the room without collapsing into a quivering heap at his feet.
She didn’t have to try.
He yanked open the door and bent down, scooping her up into his arms. “Which room?” he growled as he shoved the door closed with his foot.
It was another cherished fantasy fulfilled. Being swept off her feet. Carried off to be ravaged by a dangerous cowboy. The old Roxanne would have likely fainted from excitement; the new Roxy looped her arms around her cowboy’s neck and tickled his ear with her tongue, as if being swept off her feet were an every day occurrence.
Tom’s whole body tensed at her teasing caress, and his hands tightened on her thighs and back as a spasm of sheer sexual pleasure shot through him. If he didn’t get inside her in the next sixty seconds he was going to come in his jeans. And that hadn’t happened since he was fourteen. “Which room, Slim?”
“Seven.” She sighed the word into his ear, her breath hot and moist. “Lucky seven.” She slid her tongue down the side of his neck, and then up again, as if he were her favorite flavor of ice cream and she was intent on savoring every last delicious drop. “Second door past the office.”
Tom turned on his heel and headed toward the promise of paradise with long ground-eating strides, while the woman in his arms did her best to drive him to his knees before they got there. He stumbled slightly when she stuck her tongue in his ear, but managed to regain his balance with a quick, light-footed move that brought him to a halt directly in front of the trio of vending machines in front of the motel office. One offered the usual soft drinks, another candy bars and chips, the third had toiletries for sale…miniature tubes of toothpaste, tins of aspirin, palm-size packets of tissue, condoms. A mental picture of his battered canvas carryall, still stowed behind the front seat of his pickup, flashed through his mind.
Roxanne left off nibbling on his earlobe to raise her head. “What?” she murmured, her eyes wide and hazy with arousal, her voice softly slurred.
Tom indicated the offerings in the vending machine with a jerk of his chin. “Am I going to need those?”
Her arms still locked securely around his neck, Roxanne glanced over her shoulder to see what he was talking about. “I’ve got one inside my bra.”
His eyes blazed. “Only one?”
“And a whole box in my room,” she assured him. “There are a dozen in it. Well—” she loosened her hold on him with one hand and touched the little foil packet of protection tucked inside her push-up bra, inadvertently drawing his eyes to the creamy mounds of flesh above the neckline of her blouse “—eleven, anyway,” she managed, watching his eyes heat and burn.
“A dozen just might do it. Maybe.” He bent his head and nuzzled the scented valley between her plumped-up breasts, breathing her in with a long hungry gulp of air. “Or maybe not,” he said softly, the breath rushing out of him in a tremulous sigh.
And, just like that, Roxanne fell a little bit in love. Not the happily-ever-after, till-death-do-us-part kind of love. She wasn’t that much of a fool. But it was love, nonetheless, a light-headed, lighthearted, giddy kind of love, as insubstantial as moonbeams and neon, as temporary as the victory after a championship bronc ride. But it made what was about to happen just that much more wonderful and exciting. More thrilling. More everything. If she hadn’t already been dewy with need, that one sweet, tender gesture would have done it.
“Hurry,” she whispered, and nipped his earlobe for emphasis.
“Hurry.”
Tom hurried.
“The key?” he said, letting her slide down his body as he set her on her feet in front of the door to room number seven.
“That’s in my bra, too.”
“Get it.”
She leaned against the door, her hands behind her back, her breasts thrust out, and looked up at him from beneath the brim of his hat. “Why don’t you get—”
“No.” It was the same abrupt tone he’d used in the parking lot when he’d backed off from kissing her. But this time he didn’t back off. He simply stood there, looking down at her with hot dangerous lights dancing in his blue eyes. “I’m on the thin edge of control here, Slim, and if I put my hand down your blouse now, I’m going to end up fucking you where you stand, right here against this door, in front of God and everybody. Is that what you want?”
She almost said yes. The word hovered on the tip of her tongue for a dangerous moment, enticing them both with the possibility of flagrant debauchery. And then Tom put his hands on her shoulders, jerked her away from the door, and turned her around. “Get the key, Slim, and open the damned door.”
Roxanne fumbled for the key, fumbled as she fit it into the lock, fumbled as she turned the doorknob and stepped over the threshold. She should be aghast, she knew. Ashamed of her lack of control. Appalled at her willingness to make a public spectacle of herself. Yesterday, she would have been. Maybe tomorrow, she would be again. But right now, she wasn’t. Couldn’t be. Right now, she was on fire, burning up from the inside out, trembling with desire. The only thing on her mind, the single driving thought in her head, was the overwhelming need to assuage the heat, to quench the aching desire, to find sweet release with her good-looking, dangerous cowboy.
And then the door crashed closed behind her, and his arm encircled her waist, and he spun her around, crushing his mouth to hers, and she ceased to think at all.
He propelled her backward toward the bed, his mouth fastened to hers, feasting, his hands moving over her body, frantically molding her breasts and back and the sweet, subtle curve of her bottom through her clothes. Her kisses were as greedy, as wildly intemperate as his, her hands as frantic, touching him everywhere she could reach. The backs of her knees hit the edge of the bed and she tumbled onto it, pulling him down on top of her. They bounced once, sending the cowboy hat she still wore somersaulting over the edge of the mattress to the floor. Entwined like tangled kudzu vines, they rolled across the bed and crashed into the headboard. It banged against the wall and they rolled away, mouths still hotly fused, hands still moving frantically, bodies pressed together, legs entangled, hips grinding together. Tom’s foot hit the rickety bedside table, causing the equally rickety bedside lamp to wobble on its base, sending shadows flickering precariously across the walls and ceiling, counterpoint to the intermittent flash of red neon from the motel sign pulsing through the slanted blinds on the window.
Neither one of them paid it any heed. Neither of them would have noticed if the lamp had gone crashing to the floor. The only thing that registered was the searing wildfire need that ricocheted back and forth between them, the only thing that mattered was satisfying that need.
Immediately.
Now.
Tom shoved both hands under her tiny denim skirt, pushing it up to her waist, and curled his fingers under the low-slung waistband of her leopard-print panties. And then he paused, still on the thin edge of control, and stared down into her wide, whiskey-colored eyes. She stared back at him, her gaze avid, unwavering, and unabashedly eager, without coyness or equivocation, primed and ready for whatever came next.
“This first time is going to be a fast, hard ride,” he said, his voice low and guttural. “If that’s not what you want, say so now.”
She bent her knees, planting her boot heels on the edge of the mattress, and lifted her hips. “It’s what I want.”
He yanked her panties off, tugging them past her raised hips, dragging them down her legs, wrestling them over her boots, and tossed them on the floor. His hands went to his fly, his fingers working frantically at the metal buttons to free his erection as he slid his body back up between her legs. He grasped her bare thighs, his strong callused fingers digging into her flesh as he spread them wider, meaning to drive himself into her, hard and fast the way they both wanted, to take her with elemental, unthinking fury.
But something about the way she lay there, her minuscule skirt pushed up around her waist, her bent knees splayed, her soft, hot, woman’s body open and vulnerable to his every desire, had him suddenly gentling his approach. She was so pretty and fragile there between her legs, all plump and pink and glistening, with the feeble light from the bedside lamp glinting on the smooth pale skin of her thighs, and the red neon pulsing like a heartbeat, giving her an all-over rosy glow. The soft blond hair between her legs had been waxed or shaved or whatever it was that women did, into a narrow little rectangle that barely covered her mound. It was rawly sexy, and inexplicably, elegantly refined. Just as she was.
He softened his grip and slid his palms down the inside of her thighs, slowly, caressingly, until his thumbs just touched her vulva. Her body jerked beneath him, a tiny involuntary movement that could have signaled rejection or acceptance of his intimate invasion. He raised his gaze to her face again. She stared back through the frame of her splayed knees, her lips moist and parted, her cheeks flushed, the expression in her eyes as soft, as hot, as open and vulnerable as her body.
Slowly, still holding her gaze with his, he slid his thumbs down and then up, then down again—once, twice, three times—gently skimming her most sensitive flesh. Her body undulated, like a field of ripe wheat rippling in the wind, and she uttered a breathy little sound, half moan, half sigh, that shuddered out between her lips.
“You’re wet.” His voice was low and caressing, his gaze voracious and admiring. “Hot and wet and slippery.”
“Yes.” She didn’t blush. Didn’t look away. “I am.”
“I want you wetter. I want you—” he moved his thumbs inward a fraction of an inch, pressing down, closing in, capturing her distended clitoris between them in a sensuous little squeeze play “—dripping.”
Her body tightened, straining, and the sound she made was definitely a moan. A deep, throaty, on-the-edge moan.
He eased his thumbs back a teasing fraction of an inch from her slick swollen center and watched her eyes flare wide in mindless entreaty, watched her bite her lip against protest and plea. Her desire was palpable, her anticipation a living, breathing thing between them.
He knew exactly what she wanted.
Needed.
Had to have.
In another mood, he might have made her say the words, might have teased her—and himself—by making her ask for what she wanted. Instead, he slid his hands under her hips, slid his body down off the bed until his knees were on the floor and his shoulders were wedged between her thighs.
“We’ll save the hard riding for later,” he said, and buried his face between her legs.
Roxanne nearly levitated off the bed at the first heated, silken stroke of his tongue against her throbbing clitoris. Her back arched like a bow. Her hands clutched at the worn chenille bedspread, gathering it into her clenched fists. Her booted heels pressed down into the edge of the mattress. She moaned. Loudly. And then more loudly still as he brought his fingers into play again, opening her more fully to his lasciviously talented tongue.
It felt as if every nerve ending in her body began and ended in that one tiny nubbin of sensitized flesh between her legs. She throbbed. She ached. She vibrated with need. And, then, in a blinding, incandescent blaze of sheer primal lust, she came. It was gut-wrenching. Breath-stealing. Mind-blowing.
Sublime.
“More,” she demanded, when her breath finally shuddered back into her lungs and she could breathe again. She released her death grip on the bedspread and reached down, fisting her hands in his dark, silky hair, pressing him closer, straining for another peak. “More.”
He acquiesced with satisfying gallantry and greed, with no hint of hesitation or resistance, as if continuing to pleasure her with his mouth had been his intention all along. And, maybe, it had been. She was sweet and tender, so incredibly hot and responsive that it was pure, unadulterated pleasure to give her what she wanted. Because it was what he wanted, too.
Making her scream with ecstasy had been high on his list of priorities since the first moment he’d seen her in the bar. He’d thought to do it by pounding her into the mattress. He still meant to do it that way. Later. Right now, he was determined to tease those screams of ecstasy out of her with his tongue. She’d uttered that one, long, shuddering, gasping breath when she came the first time; he wanted a full-throated scream the next time she went over. He slipped his hands back under her bare squirming bottom to hold her more securely, and set about getting what he wanted with the same single-minded focus he applied to everything.