Harlequin Desire February 2013 - Bundle 1 of 2: The King Next DoorMarriage With BenefitsA Real Cowboy (Kings of California)

by Maureen Child

  “Yup.” They reached the top of the stairs, and Hoss turned to look at him. “It’s odd, you know.”

  J.R. swallowed, refusing to be nervous as his friend passed judgment on this thing with Thalia. “What is?”

  “Seeing you smile.” Hoss was completely, totally serious, with nary a wisecrack in sight. The sentiment was so real, so unexpected, J.R. didn’t know what to do.

  The moment didn’t last. “I forgot you had so many teeth.” Hoss threw his hands up in front of his eyes and staggered back. “Damn, man. Put those things away before you blind me.” Chuckling, he didn’t even wait for whatever snappy comeback J.R. didn’t have. He headed down to his room, peeling off layers as he went.

  J.R. took his time getting cleaned up. Thalia’s bag sat on the end of his bed, the promise of another night in her arms making him want to rush. However, rushing was the last thing he wanted to do. He spent a few extra minutes taking his beard down a layer and cleaning up the edges. His first instinct was to shave the whole thing off—he’d never had a beard and a lady friend at the same time—but something told him that was the wrong move, and that something was the memory of all the little noises Thalia made in the dark.

  Down, boy, he thought as he wrangled his button fly. He still had to make it through dinner, and it would probably be bad form to throw Thalia over his shoulder and carry her away the moment the plates were in the dishwasher. Which meant he had to keep his cool for another couple of hours. He could do that.

  He hoped.

  It turned out the time moved at a comfortable pace. Thalia and Minnie had, if possible, become even better friends over the course of the afternoon, and were now talking about movie stars who did TV shows. That wasn’t so unusual, he guessed, but the way they kept drawing him, and even Hoss, into the conversation was, well, odd. It should have felt like he was being cornered for all his insider info—after all, he had known several of the actors they were talking about—but no one plumbed him for dirt, or expected him to have the right answer. Thalia asked him what he thought, he stated his piece and they talked about it. If anything, she had way more insider info than he did. All of his knowledge was sorely out of date.

  After dinner was over, Minnie said, “J.R., why don’t you show Thalia the rest of the house? She’s going to think we live in the kitchen.”

  “What about me?” Hoss asked. He had the nerve to look hopeful. J.R. wanted to smack that puppy-dog face right off him.

  “You can help with the dishes,” Minnie replied in her no-nonsense tone before she motioned for J.R. to go on.

  “Come on,” J.R. said, taking Thalia’s hand as he led her into the hallway that divided the house in two. They left a winking Minnie and a grumbling Hoss in the kitchen. “This is the dining room.”

  She took in the table built to seat fourteen. “My, what a big table you have.”

  He couldn’t help but grin at her. “We only use it during the summer, when we’ve got hired hands to feed.”

  “That’s a lot of hired help.” She was impressed, he

  could tell.

  “I’ve got about six guys who stay the whole summer out in the bunkhouse, and some other local fellows who come out for the day. I pay them, but I think they stay for Minnie’s cooking.” He leaned down, getting close enough to her that he could smell the scent of strawberries. “More than one of the older guys has proposed to her, you know.”

  Thalia gave him a sly smile. “The way to a cowboy’s heart is his stomach?” Then she leaned up on her tiptoes and placed an innocent-feeling kiss on his lips.

  Yeah, the stomach was one way—but not the only one. He tried to pull her in closer, but she pushed back on his chest and shot him a look that managed to walk the line between scolding and teasing. “You’re supposed to be showing me around.”

  “And you’re supposed to be looking.” Man, he liked that smile on her. He liked being the one who brought it out even more. Somewhat begrudgingly, he moved her across the entry hallway. He didn’t let go of her waist this time. He wanted to keep a hold of her as much as he could.

  He led her past the front stairs and into the open room on the other side of the house. “This is the living room.” She shot him a sideways glance, as if she didn’t believe him. “Well, it is.” The massive TV took up the wall opposite of the hearth. A pool table was in one corner, and Minnie had leather armchairs everywhere. The architect had wanted to make this two separate rooms—a parlor, he’d said, and a family room. J.R. had nixed that idea straight out. At the time, he’d assumed he’d never have a family. And the kitchen did double duty, anyway.

  Thalia leaned back into him, rubbing her hand over his beard before snaking it up into his hair and pulling his head down to her neck. “I see. You use this more in the summer, too?” It was a perfectly polite question, but the way she shimmied her hips against his button fly was anything but polite. In fact, it bordered on cruel.

  “Yeah,” was all he got out as he scraped his facial hair over her earlobe. That’s right, he thought, two could play at this game.

  With great reluctance, she released him. “What’s through there?”

  Hell, yes, he was excited to hear how much of an impact he was having on her—her voice was strained. “The office.”

  Moving slowly, they maneuvered their way around all the chairs and through the doorway, all without taking their hands off each other. J.R. couldn’t remember feeling this hot for a woman, and he couldn’t remember a time when a woman had seemed this hot for him. James Robert, sure. Lots of women wanted to sleep with him for the record books. Even his few nights with lady friends since then hadn’t had this urgency, this need behind them.

  He spun her around and backed her up against his desk. Or maybe it was Hoss’s desk—hell, he didn’t know. It was a desk, and she was against it. Against him.

  The full weight of her breasts pressed against him, high and heavy and begging for him to touch, so he did. He cupped them both, feeling her nipples peaking through all of her clothes beneath his thumbs. “J.R.” His name came out as a low moan, like it had last night. She tilted her hips up, brushing her center against the front of his jeans as she dragged his mouth to hers.

  Whoa. The kiss was one of those no-holds-barred kinds that obliterated anything else but this woman. He was straining so hard behind his fly that he was in danger of breaking his jeans. The ache ran deeper than that, though—it went all the way through him. She made him hurt in the best possible way. She was his pain and his salvation at the same time.

  He was in over his head. Luckily, his head wasn’t wasting too much time thinking about that. “Yeah. This is the office.”

  “Nice,” she agreed, sliding her hands down his waist and over his backside.

  What little control he had left—and he was damnably impressed he had any—helped him to realize that sex in the office would be crossing a line that even Minnie wouldn’t let slide. “That’s the downstairs.”

  Her eyes shined in a co-conspiratorial way. “I haven’t seen everything upstairs. Haven’t seen your room. Minnie moved my things,” she added before he could ask.

  “I should show you.” It was almost impossible to let go of her enough that they could get the hell out of this room, but he forced himself to take a step back.

  She was better at this than he was. He could tell because, even though she pushed him back, her chest was heaving and her eyes blazed with the same kind of barely contained desire that held a tight grip on him.

  “Front,” was all he could say, but she understood. No need to cut through the kitchen and get bogged down in chitchat with Minnie about how well Thalia liked the house. A distraction like that would kill him.

  With long strides, she almost pulled him to the front stairway. He let her go up in front of him for selfish reasons—so he could watch her bottom move at eye level. As much as he
was trying to be a mature, responsible lover, he couldn’t resist skimming his hands over the back of her jeans. She giggled, which he took as a good sign.

  All the way down the hall, he touched her. He squeezed her bottom, ran his hands over her hips, slipped his fingertips below her waistband. Anything to get closer to the skin he’d barely gotten to touch last night. Anything to get closer to her.

  They ran into his door with a thud. He was still behind her, and he took this moment to slip his hand down the front of her jeans. One hand on her warm center, the other stroking her breast, his mouth on her neck, her ear—if he didn’t need to get rid of all these clothes, he’d hold her here and make her come.

  When she said, “Please,” in a low, whimpering voice, he knew he couldn’t wait. He needed her too much.

  He fumbled the doorknob open, and they all but fell into his room. It wasn’t warm—the fire was far too low in the hearth to add much heat to the room—but it wasn’t as cold as last night had been. He managed to kick the door shut at the same time he grabbed the hem of her sweater and peeled it over her head.

  Disappointment came in the form of a white tank top. But the black straps of her bra peeked out at her shoulders, so that kept him going. He lifted the top over her head and was immediately rewarded with the full view of her breasts, barely contained by the black lace.

  “Wow,” he said, unable to keep his hands to himself. He let their luscious weight fill his hands again.

  Another low moan escaped her lips. He covered her mouth with his, feeling the sound of her pleasure rocket through him. Then they were moving again. He was pushing her back toward the bed, she was working each agonizing button on his fly, and he was trying to undo her bra strap. He was out of practice. Took three times to get the whole thing undone.

  They hit the bed, a tangle of arms and legs and clothing flying off every which way. Man, how he wanted to slow down and appreciate her body, to let her know how special she was, how she made him feel—but he couldn’t. It wasn’t physically possible to take it nice and easy with her pushing his jeans and his boxers down, with her wrapping her long fingers around his shaft, with her arching her back as he sucked on her breast. Hell, it wasn’t even possible to get all the way on the bed. He couldn’t wait. He had to have her right now.

  With one foot tangled in his jeans and still on the floor, he lifted her legs until she had them wrapped around his waist. “Yes,” she hissed, running her fingers over his chest hair as he positioned himself. Then, with two hard thrusts, he was lodged deep in her welcoming body, feeling her shiver and shake as she cried out.

  Oh, yeah, he thought, but he didn’t have the voice to say it. Her body was tight and wet around him as he drove into her. Her hands moved over him without rhyme or reason—stroking his face, rubbing over his nipples, running her nails down his back with enough pressure to make him groan. It was the only noise he was capable of making.

  “Yes, yes,” she kept saying, and he knew he was doing that to her, for her. He was the one she wanted—not James Robert, not Hoss—not anyone. Just him. When she said, “J.R.!” as she grabbed hold of his hip bones and pulled him even deeper into her, well, he lost it. He couldn’t control himself.

  With a final thrust, he came as her shock waves rolled through her. The feeling was so much that he lost his balance and fell on top of her with a muffled whump. He was worried he’d hurt her, but she giggled again and wrapped her arms around him.

  She held him. It shouldn’t have felt like a big deal—especially not compared with the amazing sex—but it was, and J.R. wasn’t sure why. She hugged him tight to her chest. He felt her heartbeat steady and her chest rise and fall more regularly.

  He managed to prop himself up on one arm. He didn’t want to crush her, after all. This would be the time to come up with some smooth line, some tender pillow talk—all things he’d done in the past and was perfectly capable of doing again.

  But when he looked into her eyes, he had nothing—nothing except the feeling of being both lost and found at the same time. He was lost—to her.

  She smiled, a small, special thing that made him ache again. “So,” she said, her voice still smiling for her. “This is the bedroom.”

  “Yup.” Keep it together, he yelled at himself. He managed to pat the bed next to her head. “This is the bed.”

  “Nice.” She leaned up and kissed him—not the fevered thing from before, but a touch of honesty.

  He pulled out and managed to get back on his feet. He wasn’t as young as he once was, back when a wild night of drunken partying was a standard Saturday, but he hoped he had enough gas in the tank to make one more go of it tonight. Later, he promised himself, he’d take his time. “Be right back.”

  He got cleaned up in a hurry. When he got back to the bedroom, she had a sheet wrapped around her. “Cold?”

  “A little.” She grinned at him in all his naked glory, which was basically cheating. He needed this room to be a lot warmer so she wouldn’t hide behind a sheet.

  “I’ll get the fire going.” When the bathroom door shut, he slipped his boxers back on and got to work on the fire. By the time she came out a few minutes later, he’d built a respectable blaze.

  Still wrapped in that damn sheet, she came up next to him and rested her head against his arm. Wrapping her up in a hug, he pulled her in close. They stood like that for a few minutes. He knew she was looking at his Oscar and all the photos on the wall, but it didn’t feel like a dangerous act, not like it had with Donna.

  “Do you miss him?”

  Thalia’s question caught him off guard. “Who?” he asked, trying to figure out which of the celebrities in the photos she was referring to. All of them had been professional acquaintances, at best.

  “Him.” She stepped forward and touched a photo of James Robert posing with a young Brad Pitt. J.R knew he’d been about twenty in that photo. It felt like a lifetime ago.

  She wasn’t touching Brad’s face in the photo.

  “Do you ever miss being James Robert?”

  J.R. felt himself breathe. She didn’t ask like she couldn’t believe he’d given up all that fame and money. She didn’t weigh down her words with expectations of what he should be, should do. She just asked—and waited for the answer.

  If it had been anyone else, he’d have gone on the defensive, loudly protesting how much he’d hated that life, how much he loved this new one he’d made for himself. But he didn’t have to lie to her. He didn’t have to lie to himself anymore.

  “Sometimes. I get up at 3:30 a.m. in the summer to work cattle. I get stepped on, kicked, crapped on—you name it. Everyone has bad days, and when I have a bad day, it’s my own damn fault, and no one else is going to come along and clean up my mess.” Like the mess he’d made in Denny’s bar the other night. J.R. had screwed up, and he had to deal with the consequences. “And I do miss the warm weather some days.”

  She shot him a silly smile. “And to think—I’m enjoying my first blizzard.”

  “Anytime you want to come back out here and be snowed in, you let me know.” It was supposed to sound flippant, supposed to be this funny little joke he told, but it didn’t come out that way. Not even close. All he heard himself say was, Come back to me. He didn’t want this feeling, this, well, happiness to end when the snow melted. Honestly, he didn’t think he wanted it to end at all.

  The silliness of her grin faded a little bit, and she looked sad. He wasn’t sure why, and he was afraid to find out. Maybe she didn’t feel the same way about him? Then she said, “That goes for you, too. Anytime you want to hit a beach, you come see me. Just you,” she added, curling into his arms. “No movie stars allowed.”

  Oh, yeah. He was lost to her, but it was okay.

  She’d found him.

  Thirteen

  The next five days were some of the best one
s J.R. could remember. He woke up with Thalia’s arms around him. They made sweet love in the morning and then, after breakfast, bundled up and went out to the barn together. He even saddled up Old Coot and let her walk him around the arena. The way her face almost cracked in two from her smile was more than enough reward.

  After that, he’d take her back into the house, pick up Hoss and do his best to get hay out to his herds. He’d come home to happy women and a hot meal. A couple of nights after dinner, they lit the fire in the living room and watched a movie while eating popcorn. Then back to bed, back to her arms. Back to loving on her.

  Thalia shouldn’t have fit in his house—his life—so well, but she did. Minnie was thrilled to have someone to talk to and help out with the meals. Hoss settled into a nice place of gentle teasing without being over the top, and J.R. was, well...

  He was in danger of falling for Thalia.

  That was a problem because, sooner or later, the snow would melt, and she’d go back to Hollywood and he’d still be out here. And that would take everything easy about being with Thalia and make the rest of his life hard to swallow.

  She was the best thing to ever happen to him. How the hell was he going to let her drive away?

  He tried not to think about it, reasoning the snow would keep her out here.

  Except it didn’t. On the fifth day after the blizzard, the temperatures spiked up to thirty-nine, which didn’t make much of a dent in the depth of the snow. The next day, it was forty-four, and the day after that, it hit fifty-two. Fifty-two damn degrees on January 29. In Montana.

  Hoss kept plowing the drive, making more progress every day. J.R. entertained notions of sabotaging the bulldozer, but he knew that would come back to bite him on the butt, so he didn’t. On the third straight day of mid-fifties weather, Hoss made it to the road.

  “It’s clear enough,” he reported at dinner, his eyebrows notched in worry. “Road’s probably good to Billings.”