One Hot Cowboy Wedding (18 page)

Just looking at Rye and Pearl with those two babies made tears in my eyes,” Ace said.

Jasmine looked at his face to see if he was joking.

“You are serious.”

“I am. Wil is my friend. Has been since before we ever started to school. Me and him and Rye were inseparable. Fatherhood looks good on both of them,” he said.

“Ace, you’re a romantic at heart,” Jasmine said.

“Yes, he is,” Liz said. “We’re just getting finished so you two can have the table. We’d stay with you but we’ve got to get up early. How many of those squallin’ bundles do you want?” Liz asked as she slid out of the booth.

“As many as I can buy,” Jasmine teased.

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“I want a house full. Momma swears she’ll steal one of my kids from me and turn her into a carnie,” Liz said.

“I wouldn’t put it past her one bit.” Jasmine smiled.

They had barely gotten out the door when Ace kissed Jasmine on the cheek. “Darlin’, I’m not just a romantic at heart. I’m a romantic all over my body,” he said with a wicked gleam in his eyes.

“You are a rogue.”

The waitress took their order and in minutes was back with their ice cream. “Make up your mind. Am I a rogue or a romantic?”

“Depends on whether you are sweet or trashy.” She dipped into the hot fudge and ice cream and shoved it in her mouth. When she’d swallowed she said, “We didn’t have supper. I want a hamburger when I finish this.”

“Your wish is this bridegroom’s command. Just speak the words,” Ace said.

“Bet you say that to all the women.”

“Only the ones I marry in Las Vegas. The rest have to order their own damned burgers.” Ace slurped up chocolate malt through the straw. He’d been too excited about the whole waiting for the babies to be born process to realize that he hadn’t eaten, but a burger did sound good.

“How do you take yours? On the rocks or neat?” he asked.

“We still talkin’ about burgers?”

“Yep, on the rocks is mustard and onions. Neat is mayo and no onions.”

“On the rocks with a large order of onion rings,” she said.

“Something to drink with that?”

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“No, this coffee will do just fine.”

He held up a hand and the waitress came right over.

He put in an order for burgers and onion rings and added a Coke for himself. “Now, tell me again about how you are going to show up Pearl and have triplets the first time out of the chute.”

Jasmine didn’t know it was possible to choke on ice cream but she did. “Tell me how you want to be buried?

Face up or butt up?”

“I’ll have to think about that. Should you ever dig me back up, do I want you to kiss my ass or my sexy lips?

Hard decision to make, ma’am.”

“Believe me, if I ever put you in the ground, I will not be digging up your sorry old ass. I’ll leave it there under the rose bush forever.”

Ace had to swal ow fast to keep from snorting chocolate malt out his nose. He’d never met a woman like Jazzy, who’d give him right back whatever he threw out.

Lines that had most women swooning made her laugh.

Come- ons that brought women to their knees caused her to tilt her chin down and give him a look that would fry a weaker man, leaving nothing but belt buckles and boots in the wake.

Maybe that’s why he’d fallen in love with her.

Whoa, pard’ner! Pull up them reins. Just because
I want to take her to bed every time I kiss her doesn’t
mean I’m in love with her. Shit! That just means I’m
attracted to her. Hell, I’m attracted to women, period.

I like the smell of them, the taste of them, and even the
way they feel all soft and sweet. But love? That’s for
Rye and Wil. Raylen and Slade can have it too, but not
this cowboy. I just want to make love to her. Long and
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slow and lots of times. That marriage thing sets my sex
door to swinging; the one with the M on it is still fastened up tight.

“What are you thinking about? Your jaw is set and your face looks like it is set in stone. Wishin’ I’d ordered the neat burger so you don’t have to ride home with onion breath?” Jasmine asked.

Ace always had a comeback. Always! But his mind was completely blank. All he could see was that big red M on the door with four deadbolt locks and a wooden two- by- four length of oak wood nailed across it at an angle.

“Well?” Jasmine asked.

“Swallowed a hell of a big air bubble and couldn’t say a word until it decided to go up or down.” He forced a smile.

“It’s a sympathy burp for the twins,” she teased.

It’s a lie, but it wasn’t bad when you were staring at
that picture in your head
, that aggravating inner voice said.
What
are
you
intending
to
do
about
all
this?

I’d like to seduce her tonight. Once I’ve made love to
her, then I’ll know for certain that it was door number
one, the sex door that is thrown wide open, and not number two, the M door, or number three, the father door.

“Hell, I don’t know,” he said aloud.

“Don’t know what? We were talking about burping babies,” she said.

“Brain freeze. My crazy mind is thinking one thing and my ears are hearing you and they are get ing con-fused. I think it’s an acute disease, one of those some-thingmiotis things that I can’t pronounce. It’s not fatal.

It’ll pass when I get onions in my mouth,” he said.

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Q

Jasmine brushed her teeth and went straight to bed.

Blake and Dalton were still up when they got home so Ace stayed behind in the kitchen and told them all about the twins. When he made it to the bedroom she was curled up on one side, her breathing steady and shallow and her back to his side of the bed.

That negative little niggling voice started the argument when he dropped his jeans on the rocking chair on top of hers. If he had sex with Jasmine, it would not change their friendship. It would prove that he could have sex with her without thinking about any kind of permanent relationship. And he wanted her oh so bad.

He peeled out of his shirt and tossed it on the chair and the battle got hotter. By the time he was down to his boxers, desire had taken over his better sense. He eased into bed and wrapped his naked body around Jasmine’s. He nuzzled his face into her neck and was surprised as hel when she flipped over and snuggled right into his arms.

“Mmmm,” she mumbled.

Jasmine was dreaming that Ace was cuddled up with her and his hands were playing her body like a pianist on a finely tuned baby grand piano. She could hear the faint strands of “Last Date” by Floyd Kramer as Ace made big lazy circles on her back with one rough old callused hand and cupped her breast with the other.

She’d never realized just how well her breast fit into his hand, but as she stood back in the dream and analyzed the situation, it seemed as if she’d grown breasts OneHotCowboyWedding.indd 155

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in her teens especially for him. She wiggled in closer to him and let her fingertips walk across his broad expanse of back.

“God, that feels good, Jazzy,” he said.

Her eyes popped wide open at the sound of his voice.

“I was not dreaming and you are naked,” she said.

Her breath was already ragged, and molten fire fil ed her lower body. It was turn back quickly or damn the torpedoes and full speed ahead.

“And so are you except for those cute little boxer shorts which I plan to take off with my teeth,” he whispered hoarsely.

She damned the torpedoes.

He dived under the covers, grabbed the waistband of her boxers, and slowly removed them, his hands continuing to play all the way to her ankles, as his teeth pulled the elastic further and further. At the bottom they hung up on her toes so he used his fingers to dis-lodge them.

Jasmine groaned when he started back up with wet kisses, tasting one inch at a time, stopping to graze several times along the way until she was groaning and arching her back for him.

“You are one sexy woman, Jazzy,” he whispered when he finally ended the journey at her lips. He nibbled the lower one, teased her teeth apart with his tongue, and made love to her all over again with his mouth.

Jasmine had been kissed. She’d had sex. But she’d never had kisses so hot that they brought her to the brink of a climax.

When he moved on top of her, she was more than ready. She tangled her hands in his hair and held on for OneHotCowboyWedding.indd 156

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fear that when she did reach the apex of the climax that she’d fall right off the earth into eternity. The rhythm intensified with each thrust and her moans became louder. She moved her hands to his butt cheeks and dug her fingernails into his flesh. She’d never had sex when it became the center core of everything and she could think of absolutely nothing else.

“You make me so hot!” The words came out one at a time with pauses between.

Ace had the reputation for having sex with dozens of women and he’d never done a lot to discourage the rumors. Truth was that he’d had only a handful of relationships and what he experienced with Jasmine was surreal. There were only two people on the face of the earth that evening.

Ace and Jasmine.

And Ace didn’t care if it stayed that way forever.

“Ahhh, Jazzy!” he said in a deep Texas drawl and collapsed on top of her.

She could not breathe for a full minute and it had nothing to do with Ace’s weight on her body. It took that long for her body, soul, and mind to reconnect after the blazing sex.

He finally rose up and covered her mouth in a string of passionate kisses that fanned the embers still hot in the ashes of the hottest sex she’d ever known.

“Ace, we can’t. Another bout like that would kill me graveyard dead,” she rasped.

“Me too, but I love your lips,” he said.

“It isn’t like kissing your sister then? I mean, since we are best friends?” she asked.

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that? Was it like making love with your brother? Shit!

Jazzy, is that what you get out of our sex?”

“Hell, no! I don’t have a brother, but I’m damn sure what we just did wasn’t like that. It’s just that we’ve been friends so long and Liz said that when she kissed Blaze it was like kissing her brother. And the same when Raylen kissed Becca once when they were kids.

They both had best friends of the opposite sex and when they even kissed it didn’t seem right,” she explained in short gasps.

Ace kissed her softly on the forehead. “Well, darlin’, we left friendship on the other side of the bedroom door.”

“Then was it booty sex?” she asked.

“No! I can’t believe you’d say that. And it wasn’t because we came from the hospital where two of our best friends just had babies either. I can’t tell you what it was, Jazzy. I can just tell you that it was awesome and it felt right. Hell, it felt better than right. Oh, shit!”

“What?” she asked.

“I got so involved and so hot that I didn’t even think of protection. This time or the first time either. My mind doesn’t work when I’m in the bedroom with you.” She blanched and then began to count days in her head. “It should be all right this time. I’m regular as clockwork and this is not ovulation time, but…” She left the sentence hanging.

“Yes, ma’am.” He smiled. Was she about to say “but next time”? He could sure enough live with that idea.

He drew her into his arms and kissed the top of her hair.

She wiggled down deeper into his embrace, listened OneHotCowboyWedding.indd 158

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to his heartbeat, and enjoyed her afterglow which was absolutely fantastic.

It was the strangest feeling. Afterglow. Friendship.

Talking about how it felt to have sex with him. Birth control. All rolled up into one conversation that felt right. Was there something weird about that?

“Good. So I’m going out on a limb here and asking an old cliché question. How was it for you?”

“Wonderful. Steamy. Hotter’n hell. Felt right. Best ever.” She yawned and fell asleep, still curled up against his side.

He still had a grin on his face when he finally went to sleep.

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Jasmine worried all day with the fallout from the best sex she’d ever had the night before and a couple of days before. She felt like Old Bill with a big ham bone, burying it in the yard and then digging it up to chew on it some more before digging another hole and hiding it in the backyard. Bridget would hang up two or three orders and she’d busy herself filling them, thinking only about whether to put mashed potatoes and gravy on the plate or French fries. Then there would be a lull in business and she’d pour a cup of coffee, sit down at the table, and worry over the sex issue again.

She picked up an order pad and scribbled.

Thursday: Ace told about the probability of losing his ranch to the villain, Cole. Slimy bastard. Ace is right about him. One week to find wife. I proposed.

But, did he play me. He knows me better than anyone
other than Pearl and he had to have known that I would
do anything to help him.

Friday: Plans made. He asked a dozen times if I was sure I wanted to go through with it.

Reassurance
so
that
later
he
could
say
I
was
given
multiple
chances
to
back
out.