In Love With A Cowboy (BWWM Romance) (10 page)

It had worked nine years ago. I was hoping it would work again now.

“I’ll phone the information up for you, Mr. Williams,” she said. I thanked her and walked to my room. It was surprising how quickly I could fall back into old habits when I decided to. I looked at my watch and sat down on the bed, paging through a magazine. In a few moments the receptionist would phone and tell me exactly how many hours I had left in hell.

Chapter 9 - Jada

I woke up with a hell of a headache and regret pressing down on me much, much harder than stress ever had. I wasn’t a stranger to the feeling. I’d had a lot of regrets in my life. Leaving my family behind to be with a man they didn’t approve of.. Having to stick around Dean for the rest of my life.

And now, hurting Tanner. That was a big one I could add to the list.

After he’d left last night I’d felt like I was falling apart. I hated red wine. I hated the smell of it, the taste when it ran down the back of my throat, too thick to be good for me. What I had liked was the fire it had caused in my veins, the fog it had wrapped around my mind, the chance to forget.

Dean had pushed in through the kitchen door not too long after. He’d sat down, and the way he was trying to focus on me like the lines of my face were blurred told me how drunk he was.

“What are you doing here?” I’d asked him.

“You know, sometimes I wonder what happened to us,” he’d said and I’d shook my head and drank more wine. I knew what had happened to us. It had been happening then. He’d been drunk most of the time toward the end of our relationship, and I’d started drinking too. That had scared me more than his problem, the fact that I’d been able to develop that problem too.

I’d stopped dead when I’d found out I was pregnant, and I’d broken up with him. I hadn’t touched alcohol in four years, and since then only a glass of wine now and then.

Last night he’d sat at my table, and we’d both been drunk again. It felt like a horrible case of déjà vu.

I’d asked him to go away. I’d wanted him to leave me alone so I could wallow in self-pity. When I looked at him again I could see Tanner. The chiseled jaw that hid under his fattening chin. The color of his hair and his skin. The blue eyes that somehow always felt like home.

I’d finished the wine, and felt like a loser for it. I had just gotten up to dump it in the trashcan when Dean had gotten up and walked around to me.

“I should never have let you go,” he’d said to me, snaking his arms around my waist.

“Not tonight, Dean. You’re drunk.”

When he was drunk he was all over me, even years after we’d broken up. It was like the alcohol bridged the gap between back then, when we were still together, and now when we were just short of enemies. I wanted that gap there to keep us apart.

I’d pushed him away, but his skin had been warm through his shirt. I’d looked up at him, my hand on his chest. His eyes had been bluer than they’d been in a while, and I could see Tanner in them.

He’d leaned in and kissed me, and I’d kissed him back. Not because he was Dean and there was a part of me that missed him. But because I was drunk and I wanted Tanner back. Drunk logic was dumb, but Dean was related to Tanner and I wanted Tanner back.

Dean’s lips had tasted of whiskey, vulgar and bitter, and his body had been clumsy and all over me. It had made me feel claustrophobic, unable to breathe. I’d pushed against him to push him away. But drunk Dean was just as strong as sober Dean, and he grabbed my wrists, pinning me against the wall. He’d kissed me harder and I hadn’t struggled. Not just because the kiss had been familiar. But because struggling against Dean never worked out good for me.

And then Tanner had come in, and I’d felt like I was going to die, I’d been so ashamed.

I took a deep breath and looked in the mirror. Why had he come back? I wished I knew. I wished I hadn’t been drunk, and Dean hadn’t been there. Alcohol was a problem, and it had chased the one man away that had had the balls to come back after I’d kicked him out.

There weren’t a lot of men I could say that about. Not even Dean, and he was pretty well known for being a regular pain in the ass.

I dropped Keisha off at the Play Center and drove through to the café. I turned off the ignition and listened to the car tick slower and slower until it was quiet. I had to unlock, but I didn’t get out of the car. I sat there staring at the café. It was weird that one little narrow shop, squashed nearly out of existence by two other shops, could be the sum total of my life. I suddenly wondered what it was all about. What was I doing this for?

I started the car again, and pulled a couple of blocks down, stopping in front of the Lazy Eye hotel. I got out and greeted Barbara who was reading a magazine behind the reception desk.

“Do you know where I can find Tanner Williams?” I asked. Barbara eyed me.

“Do you have an appointment?” I asked.

“Cut the crap, Barb. Three star hotels don’t do appointment calls to their patrons.”

She made a face at me. “Room 302,” she said and slid her eyes back to the magazine on her lap. I thanked her and got into the rickety elevator.

When I knocked on the door there was no answer. I was scared he would be out. I turned to leave just as the door opened. Tanner looked at me, his mouth half-open in the middle of forming a sentence. He’d just gotten out of the shower. His skin still had water drops on it and his sandy hair was wet, dripping onto his shoulders. He closed his mouth and looked me up and down. I was wearing jeans and a t-shirt that said ‘Last Clean Shirt’ on it, and I felt suddenly self-conscious.

He was wearing only a towel round his waist and I followed the V-line down with my eyes until it disappeared underneath the white of the towel. I knew what was under there, and I swallowed, forcing my eyes back up to his face.

“You’re not room service,” he said.

“I’m not,” I answered. He hesitated long enough for me to think he was going to tell me to go away. Instead he stepped to the side so I could enter the room.

“You wouldn’t happen to have brought the clean towels with you?” he asked. His face was serious but his eyes were smiling again, and I realized he was joking.

“Sorry,” I said, and I wasn’t sure what I was apologizing for. Being a disappointment because I didn’t have the towels, or being a disappointment because I was… well...

Tanner sat down on the bed. The mattresses dipped under his weight. I stood awkwardly close to the door, feeling somehow like I was imposing.

“I wanted to apologize,” I said because I didn’t know how I was going to manage small talk when he was sitting in front of me wearing just a towel. His face was clean and open, and his eyes were blue. Inviting. Smiling.

“I was wrong. I was drunk. You’d left and I felt like my world was coming to an end. Dean had walked in there, drunker than me, and he’d been an idiot.”

“You don’t have to apologize, Jada,” Tanner said in a gentle voice.

I shook my head, holding up my hand. “I want to,” I said. Because if I stopped talking now I might just cry. “He’d been an idiot, but that was no excuse for me to be one too.” I took a deep breath. “I was wrong.”

He nodded slowly.

“But so were you,” I added, and Tanner’s expression turned to stone. I ignored it. I already lost him, what was the worst that could happen? I tried not to answer that for myself. “You should have told me earlier. About you and Dean being related. Brothers. I kind of needed to know that.”

“Would it have changed the decisions you made? Changed what we’d become?”

I squeezed my eyes shut. What we’d become…

I opened them again and looked down at my hand. “It doesn’t matter what I would or wouldn’t have done,” I said. “The point is you lied to me.”

“I didn’t deny he was my brother,” he said.

“And you didn’t tell me, either. You just left that bit out. That’s still lying, you know.”

Tanner nodded, and when I looked at him he was also staring down at his hands. “You would give me a hell of a run in court,” he said softly. When he looked up at me his eyes were a shocking blue, and they were full of emotion I couldn’t read. He got up and walked to me. I stood rooted to the spot even though I knew I should have backed away. He slid his hands behind my neck, and kissed me.

I kissed him back. I couldn’t not do it. It was Tanner, and being with him felt natural. Like breathing.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbled against my lips. I nodded my head, feeling his hands move at the back of my neck. I sighed, and it felt amazing being this close to him. His skin smelled clean, like soap, and his skin was cool to the touch. I pushed my hand into his wet hair. My other hand traced lines over his shoulder, back and forth. His skin was smooth and I could feel the muscle underneath it, rippling when he moved his arm. He brought his hands around and pulled the shirt over my head. It was a question. A bold one, but a question. I nodded slightly, and he unclipped my bra. My breasts sprang free, and he looked at me, tracing the contours of my body with his fingertips. I undid my own jeans and slid them down, stepping free of them. I was naked in front of him.

His hands slid over my body. I tugged once on his towel and it fell in a heap around his feet. He was hard, and he leaned against me. The length of him pressed against my hip and pre-cum trailed on my skin. He stopped kissing me and took my hand, leading me to the bed. I kissed him when we were at the bed’s edge, and pressed lightly on his chest so he would sit down. When he complied I pushed against him a little harder, making him lie back.

I crawled over his body. His eyes were dark and hungry, and he held his hands against my skin so they dragged down my body as I moved up him. I sat on top of him, just above his hips, and kissed him.

I was taking charge. I wanted him to know what I felt for him. I wanted to make up for what I’d done. I licked his lips, tracing them with my tongue, and then I kissed him long and deep. Sensual.

He sighed into my mouth. His hand slid around my hips and between my legs. I was suspended above him, and his fingers felt my clit. A shudder rippled through my body. I kept kissing him, but his fingers worked magic on my clit, rubbing in circles over and around it. My body burned hotter and hotter, and I could feel an orgasm build inside of me. I made small whimpering sounds into his mouth, and he responded with his fingers, working me into a frenzy.

It was turning him on, too. I felt his cock behind me stiffen and grow, pressing against the swell of one of my ass cheeks. He led me to the edge quickly, and then he helped me over. The orgasm was intense and unexpected, and it ripped through my body. I went numb and stopped kissing him so I could cry out. I collapsed on top of him and breathed hard for a few moments.

He wrapped his arms around me and held me there, straddling his torso.

When I finally managed to pull all the pieces together I pushed up. He looked at me with so much love and affection when I did, it almost hurt. I positioned myself over him, feeling a little shaky, and lowered myself onto his cock. He pushed into me and I moaned. He was bigger this way, and I shifted my hips a little to get used to his size.

Then I started moving backward and forward, bucking my hips against him. I could feel myself clamp down around him, still riding out the orgasm, but I wanted him inside me, so I kept going. I rocked back and forth, and his face changed from loving to pure ecstasy. I showed him what I felt, what he meant, what I couldn’t put into words. His hands were on my hips, helping me push backward and forward, and my breasts swayed in front of his face as I rode him.

He grunted and groaned in time with the movements. From time to time his hands left my hips and grabbed onto my breasts, groping them, pulling at my nipples and massaging my breasts, while I rocked back on forth on him. His breathing changed, his pupils dilated even more, and I could feel him swell more inside of me until he curled around me like a question mark, heaving and panting and jerking, pumping into me. His release was complete, and he shuddered against me, holding my body against his until his orgasm slowed down.

I lay on top of his chest with him still inside of me, listening to the hammering of his heart, until I felt him soften up. I lifted so he slipped out of me, and I climbed off him, lying next to him.

He turned his face to me, his eyes droopy and a lazy smile on his face.

“I know it had just been one night, but I missed you,” he said.

“I don’t want to lose you,” I whispered softly. He looked troubled for a moment, but then he gathered me into his arms and pulled me against his chest. Just a little longer, right here in his arms where I was safe, and I could keep going.