Dylan was in the kitchen, standing next to the counter, as he went through the items in the Last Chance Ranch first-aid kit. He turned, devilry gleaming in his eyes. “It’s not too late,” he drawled.
Yes, Emily thought wistfully, as her heart skipped a beat, it was.
It was way too late.
He winked as the corners of his lips turned up into a warm, teasing smile. “If you want to call a real medic…”
Emily rolled her eyes and set her bundled clothing on the floor. Working to still her racing pulse, she stepped toward him. He was right. Taking a light, carefree attitude was best. “Don’t be silly. You can do this.”
The look on his face said he knew that—he just didn’t know if he should. Emily understood his hesitation. After the feed-store debacle, they’d agreed not to make love again, yet already the tension between them was sky-high. And she hadn’t even partially disrobed yet.
Telling herself she could handle this, just the same way she handled him, Emily turned. Her back to him, she unbuttoned the second, third, fourth closures. Easing the fabric open, she simultaneously clutched it to her breasts and pushed it back and down so the shirt fell across her shoulders and lowered over her spine.
She winced as cool air assaulted the raw scrape that traversed the skin between her shoulder blades.
“You’re lucky you didn’t break anything.” Dylan picked up a spray mix of antiseptic and anesthetic lotion.
Emily closed her eyes in anticipation of more pain, muttering, “I’m too stubborn to break anything.”
“I hear that’s what your father used to say when he was rodeoing,” Dylan murmured.
She exhaled. “I guess a little recklessness runs in the family,” she agreed.
“No doubt.” His warm breath brushed over her skin.
Emily hitched in a breath as the liquid hit her scrape, stinging at first, then promptly cooling into blissful numbness.
Relieved, she let out another slow breath.
Looking into his eyes at that moment would have been dangerous, but she could feel Dylan’s smile. It was as warm and soothing as his touch.
“Now for the antibiotic cream,” he said.
Emily tensed despite herself. “That’s got to hurt less, right?”
“You shouldn’t feel much at all,” Dylan predicted.
He was right. She felt no pain with the application of the thick white cream, but there was no way not to feel the gentle strokes of his fingers across her back. No way not to be aware of the pearling of her nipples beneath the shirt he’d lent her, and the curl of desire sweeping through her insides.
By the time he had finished, it was all she could do not to tremble, she wanted him so much.
Sounding a lot more unaffected than she felt, he closed the cap on the tube. “We could bandage this, if you want.”
“I think it’s probably better to leave it open to air, don’t you think?”
Emily tried to adjust her shirt with her free hand, but found that to be an impossible task.
Again, Dylan stepped in to help, lifting the fabric away, easing it up and over her shoulders with gentlemanly care.
Embarrassed by her unprecedented vulnerability, glad for the modest coverage, Emily pushed the buttons through the holes. Only when she was sufficiently cloaked did she turn back to face him once again.
Aware her whole body was still aching with the need to be touched and loved, Emily forced herself to put aside her yearning and look Dylan square in the eye. “Thank you,” she managed.
Dylan rested a companionable hand on her shoulder. “You’re welcome.” He paused, smiling. “Thank you for helping out with Ginger.”
“But not for taking too much upon ourselves, too fast?” Emily teased, wishing he would throw caution to the wind, forget their earlier promises and kiss her.
Dylan shook his head, in deadpan censure, then he dropped his hand to his side. “Had you not done that, you never would have been thrown,” he reminded mildly.
Emily sighed. She guessed it wasn’t going to happen. He wasn’t going to make a move on her after all. And really, she schooled herself firmly, it was for the best.
She stepped back. “I’m aware of that.” Unable to bear the intimacy in his eyes, coupled with the need welling inside her, Emily looked down at her clothing. “Unfortunately, I can’t go back into town dressed like this.” She screwed up her face comically. “Not without causing a lot of talk anyway.”
He tapped her playfully on the nose. “And we certainly don’t want that.”
Emily wanted Dylan to pull her against him and kiss her, taking the decision out of her hands.
“You can use the washer and dryer, if you want.” He stepped back. “I’ll make myself scarce and give you your privacy.”
Here it was, Emily thought, the opportunity to put the fierce yearning aside and keep to their agreement. And maybe she would have had he not seemed tempted, too. The daredevil inside her was back, stronger than ever.
She curled her hands over his biceps. “That’s not what I want.”
Dylan swallowed. “If I stay, you know what is likely to happen.”
“And you think that’d be wrong for me?”
His eyes gleamed. He came closer, all lazy, swaggering male. “You’re a McCabe. You’re meant to be married to someone from a family just like yours.”
And marriage, Emily knew, was not what Dylan wanted. He might have, of course, if he’d believed in happily-ever-afters. But he didn’t.
And that meant she had a choice to make too that would require her to take a giant leap of faith.
She splayed her hands across Dylan’s chest, her determination to succeed stronger than ever. “I know what everyone thinks. That I have to have what my family wants for me. That I can’t be with any man without trying to change him, but that’s just not true,” she whispered, her growing feelings for him giving her courage. “I can be with you—without asking you to change—just like you won’t ask me to change.” She wound her arms about his neck and rose on tiptoe. “Let me prove it to you.”
Dylan’s jaw set. “I’m not the kind of guy you need, Emily. I never will be.”
Emily ignored his quelling expression and instead focused on the pulse racing in his throat. “What I need is my freedom, Dylan,” she stated stubbornly. “Just like you need yours.”
Dylan’s eyes shuttered to half-mast. Already, he was giving in. “Emily…”
Luxuriating in his surrender, she pressed a finger to his lips. “No promises, Dylan. No thinking about what tomorrow will bring. Just…this.” She kissed him, sweetly, tenderly.
“You say that now,” he protested against her mouth on a rough exhalation of breath.
Emily took both his hands in hers. “And I mean it.” She stared deep into his eyes, promising, “We’ll be together as long as it feels right, as long as I need a boyfriend to stave off Xavier and run interference between me and my family, and you need help with the mustangs.” Her heart pounding, she drew a bolstering breath. “After that, we’ll go back to each doing our own thing and go our separate ways. With no complications and no regrets. Just a few memories to keep us warm on cold winter nights.”
Dylan studied her, still gripping her hands. “You’re talking friends with benefits?”
Emily shrugged, unwilling to put even that much of a restriction on what it was they were agreeing to. Aware he was hard and male and strong in all the ways she had ever wanted, she whispered back, “Friends with temporary benefits, Dylan.”
Looking as if she were everything he had ever wanted, too, Dylan smiled. He threaded his hands through her hair and brought her face up to his. Slowly, he lowered his lips, tilted his head to better accommodate the kiss. His eyes closed. “You drive a hard bargain, cowgirl. But one I feel compelled to accept.” He kissed one corner of her lips, then the other.
“What can I say?” she whispered fiercely, pausing to deepen the kiss. “I want what I want…and what I want, Dylan, is you.”<
br />
So much…
“Well, then,” he answered in a deep, sexy voice that kindled her senses all the more, “let’s make it happen.” He reached for the zipper on her jeans. As he drew it down, cool air assaulted her skin. The warmth of his palm followed, then his touch. She surged and writhed, surrendering her body, and then he was pressing her back against the counter, pushing her pants all the way off.
“Dylan,” she moaned, her legs opening even wider. His hand slid between them, stroking the tender insides from knee to pelvis and back again. She was teetering on the edge…bursting with heat and sensation. “Dylan,” she cried out, even more urgently.
His eyes dark with passion, he slid downward. Smiling at what he found, he teased her gently, “I like you without panties.” And then before she could do so much as take a breath, his mouth was there, his fingers parting the delicate skin and sliding inside. Driving her crazy. Making her shake as more moisture flowed, until she quivered in ecstasy and nearly collapsed with the pleasure of it. Swells of almost unbearable sensation sweeping through her, she opened her eyes. “I wanted to wait for you.”
“You will,” he promised hoarsely. Rising, he opened her shirt, claimed the softness of her breasts. Admiration shimmering in his eyes, he stroked her nipples. Then he captured her skin in a kiss so hot and sweet and tender it had her shuddering all over even as she demanded more.
Not to be undone, she unbuttoned his shirt and pressed forward so her nipples rubbed against the work-honed muscles of his chest. The delicious friction made her groan. That, along with her subsequent kisses, made him hard. Really hard. So hard he did not protest when she finally tore her lips from his, eased down the zipper of his jeans and dispensed with his clothes from the waist down.
She was determined to make this as good for him as he had for her. She tempted…discovered…adored, until his legs were taut and his breath was rasping in his chest. He brought her upward, to sit up on the counter. He stepped between her legs with a resolve that had her surrendering all over again.
Together, as erotic moments passed, they looked their fill.
“I don’t know how we got so lucky,” Dylan rasped out, “but for once I’m not going to question it.” And then he was kissing her again, shifting his strong hard body until it became part of hers, and she was lifting her hips and wrapping her legs around his waist, bringing him closer still.
Caught up in something too powerful and primal to fight, Emily took him into the warmth of her body, and then discovered their bodies were made for each other after all. Awash in sensation, she let sheer abandon overtake her. Their ragged breaths meshed as soulfully and completely as their hot, passionate kisses. And then it happened, just as he’d promised it would. He pressed into her as deeply as he could go and they were soaring, flying free. Boundaries dissolved in a wild, wanton pleasure unlike anything she had ever known.
Afterward, they clung together, breathing hard. And Emily told herself it was a very good thing she was not in love with Dylan or he with her. Because if that had been the case, they’d both be in a heap of trouble.
MORNING CAME far too soon, and with it a whole new host of problems. “Xavier Shillingsworth is back,” Bobbie Sue Everett reported, shortly after the café opened.
Telling herself that nothing was going to alleviate the glow she felt, Emily continued whisking eggs. “How do you know that?”
Bobbie Sue frowned. “Because he just took the corner booth and ordered one of everything on the menu, to be brought to him one dish at a time.”
Emily sighed. “Or in other words, he intends to be here awhile.”
“All morning, from the way he was talking.”
Dylan—who’d been occupying a seat at the counter—ambled into the kitchen. Seeing him reminded Emily of the hot, passionate lovemaking of the night before and the fact that she could not ever recall being this happy or feeling this adored.
Dylan took up a proprietary post next to Emily, all lazy, swaggering male. “Want me to get rid of Shillingsworth?” he asked.
Emily shook her head. “He has as much right to be here as any other customer, and if he wants to pay me several hundred dollars for the privilege, so be it.”
Dylan came closer and gently touched her cheek. “You know he just wants to make trouble.”
Emily’s heart warmed, still she cautioned, “You don’t need to protect me.”
Dylan grinned. “As you pointed out to me in the past, needing and wanting something are two different things. And since I am your, uh…”
“Pretend boyfriend?” Simone put in, from the other end of the griddle.
Emily blinked at the unexpected sarcasm.
“Hey.” Simone held up a hand in her own defense. “I know I owe you a debt of gratitude for everything you’ve done for my son, Dylan. Since Andrew started doing community service at Last Chance Ranch, he really is turning around, attitudewise. But that doesn’t mean I want to see Emily hurt. And games that get this complicated usually end up hurting someone.”
“Well, it’s not going to be either of us,” Emily told her friend firmly, exasperated to find yet another person trying to watch out for her. She looked the tall handsome cowboy in the eye. “Dylan and I know where we stand.”
The question was…would friends with temporary benefits be enough to make either of them happy, even for the short haul?
Fortunately, Emily had little time to think about it, as the café began to fill with cowboys looking for the day’s bargain. Dylan went back to sit at the counter and keep an eye out for Shillingsworth. Emily and Simone manned the griddle and ovens, while Bobby Sue and Billy Ray Everett waited tables.
All would have gone smoothly, had it not been for the astonished scream, which reverberated through the Daybreak Café, a short time later.
Emily dropped what she was doing and rushed into the dining room. A female diner Emily had never seen before was standing, still screeching, and pointing at her plate. Aware that every head had turned toward the female diner, Emily raced forward. “What is it?”
“A cockroach!” the woman shrieked even louder. She pointed at her plate. “Right there!”
Sure enough, Emily noted in disgust, there was a dead three-inch cockroach, peeking out from beneath a half-eaten Western omelet that Emily had prepared herself. Horrified, she grabbed the plate. “I am so sorry.”
“How could this have happened?” The woman threw down her napkin and bolted for the door, as if the hounds of hell were after her.
And so it went.
At seven-thirty, another patron Emily had never seen before found a shard of broken glass in his bowl of oatmeal.
At eight-fifteen, a young man in a college T-shirt discovered what looked like a mouse tail inside a breakfast tortilla.
Through it all, Xavier sat in his booth, a fake look of concern on his face.
By then, Emily’s brothers had all come in to the café. They were standing with Dylan, near the cash register.
“Normally, I’m against physical solutions to problems….” Holden said.
Jeb squared his hat on his head. “But some pranks just aren’t funny.”
Hank nodded grimly. “And a person needs to be shown the door.”
“I agree.” Dylan looked all three of Emily’s brothers in the eye.
When had Dylan lost his outsider status and become one of them? Emily wondered in shock.
“Well, I don’t.” She forced herself to keep a low profile. “I object to the kid garnering even that much attention.” She cast a look over her shoulder at the smugly observing teen. “Don’t you guys get it? He wants to be the center of attention. He wants to be able to lodge a complaint that I refused to serve him.”
“You have every right to do so,” Jeb said.
“And if I do, he’ll make a fuss and try to figure out a way to get it in the news. This isn’t the kind of publicity that I want.
Trust me, guys. Just ignore him and he’ll eventually give up, pay his bill and
leave.”
All four men disagreed.
But for some reason Emily couldn’t decipher, her three brothers looked to Dylan to decide. “It’s whatever Emily wants,” Dylan said finally.
Emily had very little time to regret her decision.
Because just then, the door opened, and an inspector from the health department walked in.
“ARE YOU OKAY?”
Emily looked at Dylan, glad he had remained with her during the day’s upheaval, yet uncertain how to answer that. She shut the blinds and put the Closed sign on the door. Turning back to Dylan, she ran a hand through her hair. “Considering the Daybreak Café just got an eighty-three out of a possible one hundred points?” Renewed horror ran through her. “Dylan, I’ve never gotten less than a ninety-eight!”
Dylan followed her into the kitchen. “The inspector knows those incidents this morning were bogus.”
It hadn’t made a difference, though, Emily thought glumly. “He still had to come out and do his job. And give me demerits for the customer complaints, even though he couldn’t find a single thing that would have substantiated the validity of the infractions.” Feeling weary to her soul, Emily sat down on a stainless-steel kitchen prep stool. She buried her face in her hands.
Dylan rested a compassionate hand on her shoulder. “If it’s any consolation, your brothers and I still want to take Shillingsworth out behind the barn.”
Emily rolled her eyes. “McCabes don’t do violence on others and you know it. It doesn’t matter what the situation is, there is always a civil way to resolve it.”
His expression serious, Dylan pulled up a stool and faced her. “And a not so civil way,” he said bluntly.
Emily smiled. “You certainly inspired uncivil notions in me last night,” she murmured, the feel of his knee pressed against hers, reminding her of the unbridled pleasure they had discovered.
His eyes crinkled at the corners. “Same here…but we digress.”
Emily had never had a boyfriend so willing to take on her problems. “So we do.”
“It seems to me I heard tales of your dad dueling in the streets with that movie star Beauregard Chamberlain over your mother.”
One Wild Cowboy Page 14