“You like this, don’t you?”
She nodded. She liked the way he touched her, so hungry and desperate, as if he couldn’t get enough of her. She liked the way he made her feel so restless and hungry inside, as if she couldn’t get enough of him.
She liked him.
“You want me to keep touching you, don’t you?”
She drew a shaky breath and nodded again.
“What if I told you that someone was watching us?”
“Is there someone?”
“Does it matter? Would you really want me to stop? Or would you want me to touch you anyway?”
“I…” She drew a sharp breath as his fingertip slid beneath the edge of her bikini bottom and traced the seam between her legs. “I want you to touch me anyway. Because.”
Because the notion that someone would see him touch her, desire her, would make it that much more real.
She’d had such a deep crush on him way back when and she’d desperately wanted him to return her feelings. She’d imagined it time and time again. She’d mistaken his smile every morning when she’d climbed onto the school bus for interest. Misinterpreted him saying hello in the hallway at school for genuine like. Labeled innocent acts of kindness—such as when she’d forgotten her lunch and he’d given her his or the time he’d asked her to dance at the Elks Lodge fund-raiser because she’d been the only one without a date—as surefire signs of attraction.
She’d fooled herself until the truth had stared her baldly in the face. There’d been no way to sugarcoat his rejection that night at the lake. He’d walked right by her, straight into the water, and it had been obvious that he’d felt nothing for her.
Back then.
But now?
The fingertip parting her folds, plying the soft, slick tissue, wasn’t a figment of her overactive imagination. No carefully constructed fantasy. No wet dream in the dead of night.
The touch was real. He was real. And he really wanted her.
As much as she wanted him.
Just as the thought struck, she forced it back out. This wasn’t about wanting him. It was about wanting, pure and simple. About tuning in to her own body and focusing solely on the way her heart beat and her skin tingled.
She told herself that over the next few moments as he dipped inside her steamy heat and her body seemed to tighten around him. Pressure pulled inside of her, winding tight as he pressed deeper. Once. Twice. Each probe took her breath away, the sensation sharper, sweeter, but it wasn’t enough. She needed more. She moved her hips, begging him deeper, but he didn’t oblige. Instead, he withdrew until his touch rested between her slick folds, as if he waited for her to grab him and pull him back inside.
She fought the urge and took advantage of his retreat to drag some much needed air into her deflated lungs.
“Have you ever had an orgasm like this? With just a man’s hand between your legs? Moving back and forth? Up and down?” The rough pad of his finger slid between her lush lips until he brushed her clitoris.
Pleasure, so fierce and intense, pierced her brain and shattered her resistance for a heart-stopping moment.
“Have you?” His deep voice slid past the thunder of her own heartbeat.
“I…” She licked her lips.
“Tell me.”
No. The word was there on the tip of her tongue, but she clamped her lips shut and kept it from going any farther. She bolted to her feet.
“Deanie?” He followed her to where she stood trying to catch her breath by the pool. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing.” She drew some much needed air into her legs and summoned her best smile. “Mission accomplished.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The first workshop. I passed. I let you touch me in a public place and I managed to push everything aside and focus on the way it made me feel.”
“Which was?”
“Nice.”
“Nice?”
“Good.” She tried to look nonchalant. “Pretty good.”
“I felt you tighten around me.” His deep, seductive voice slid into her ears and stirred her already throbbing body. “I know it felt better.”
“Okay, so it felt better than good.” He arched an eyebrow and before she could stop herself, she blurted, “It felt great.” When he grinned, she added, “But great is a far cry from spectacular. And it didn’t feel spectacular. Not orgasmic spectacular.”
His expression hardened. “It would have if you hadn’t jumped up like that.”
“Maybe.” She shrugged. “And maybe not.”
His gaze narrowed dangerously. “Are you saying you weren’t going to have an orgasm?”
The way he said the last word caused a bolt of desire that struck right between her legs. Her thighs clenched and she cleared her suddenly dry throat. “I—I might have—” She licked her lips “—but the odds are just as great that I wouldn’t have.”
She’d been close. So close. But he didn’t know that and she wasn’t going to tell him because that would mean admitting that he could make her feel things no other man ever had.
That he was different. Special.
Her one and only.
He wasn’t, she told herself for the umpteenth time. The thing was, with him so close and so masculine and so downright sexy, she was having more and more trouble believing it. And when he stared at her with that knowing light in his whiskey-colored eyes, she flat out didn’t buy it at all.
Even more, she knew he didn’t buy it. He saw past her defenses to the trembling, panting, needy woman beneath, and damned if he didn’t smile—a slow tilt to his sensuous lips that made her want to kiss him, long and slow and deep, almost as much as she wanted to hold on to her pride.
Almost.
“Look me in the eyes and tell me you didn’t just have one of the most amazing times of your life.”
She caught and held his gaze. Do it, she told herself. Tell him before you lose your nerve. Or worse, before you up and kiss him.
She wasn’t going to kiss him. She had willpower.
Unless he grinned at her, that is. Then she wouldn’t be able to help herself.
He grinned. “You can’t say it, can you?”
“No, but let’s see if you understand hand gestures.” She reached out and shoved for all she was worth. It was that or kiss him, and Deanie wasn’t making the same mistake twice. She’d put her pride on the line once before for Rance McGraw and he’d stomped all over it.
He wasn’t rejecting her this time.
“WHAT THE…” hell drowned in a mouthful of water as Rance slammed into the deep end and went under. He came up sputtering a few seconds later and glared up at Deanie who stood near the edge of the pool, an unreadable expression on her face.
“Dammit, woman! What was that for?”“You seemed a little hot around the collar and I thought you needed to cool off.”
“By drowning me?”
“If memory serves me, you’re a better than average swimmer.”
“Not with a concussion. I damned near hit the bottom of the pool.”
Deanie fought back a wave of compassion and held tight to the sudden surge of anger that rushed through her, along with her memories.
“I never figured you for the careful type, what with wrangling snakes and all that other stuff you do in the name of sports.”
“They are sports. Extreme sports.”
“Extremely nutty sports. Then again, you’ve never been one to use good judgment. What were you thinking jumping into that lake at midnight while you were three sheets to the wind?” The question was out before she could stop it. “You could have killed yourself.”
But then death had been preferable to a hot night with Deanie Codge, her bruised ego whispered.
“Yeah, well that was stupid.” His voice was quiet, laced with an unmistakable regret. As he stared up into her eyes, Deanie had the distinct suspicion that he was talking about more than just jumping into the lake. And then he opened his mouth, an
d his words confirmed the feeling. “I did a lot of stupid things that night.” His gaze darkened and sincerity glimmered in the dark golden depths. “I shouldn’t have turned you down, Deanie.”
“Yeah, well…” She’d rehearsed this moment in her dreams so many times back then when she’d been so hurt. He’d said he was sorry and she’d proceeded to tell him what a low-life scumbag he was. He’d hurt her and so she’d wanted to hurt him. But now, with the regret swimming in his eyes, she couldn’t seem to find the words.
“I—I think I hear my cell phone ringing.” She turned and rushed back to the lounge chair, and snatched up her bag. Behind her, water splashed as Rance moved toward the edge of the pool.
“Yep, it’s my phone, all right.” Or it would have been if she’d left the thing turned on. “I really should get back inside where it’s quiet and return the call. It’s probably Calvin, or maybe Miss Geneva back home. Her radiator just won’t behave itself.” She grabbed her discarded wrap, snatched up her shoes and started around the pool just as water sloshed and Rance hauled himself onto the concrete.
She ignored the urge to look and picked up her steps. Not because she feared him coming after her. But because she feared flinging herself into his arms if he did. An urge she knew would be that much stronger if she chanced a glance behind her and saw him standing there dripping wet, his board shorts clinging to him like a second skin. She’d imagined what he’d looked like more than once after he’d climbed out of the lake all those years ago. Of course, she’d imagined years later, after the initial hurt had faded and she’d traded her young girl daydreams for a woman’s erotic fantasies.
Fantasies, mind you. But this was reality and it was much more complicated.
“I shouldn’t have turned you down.”
The admission echoed in her head and sent a burst of joy through her. Not satisfaction or a sense of justice. But joy. As in, she still cared. As in, she still felt for him.
She did.
But the emotion driving her now was pure lust. He’d worked her up on the lounge chair and she was in desperate need of a really good orgasm. It only stood to reason that she would be close to jumping his bones right now.
It didn’t have anything to do with the fact that he really and truly regretted rejecting her that night.
She ignored the strange flutter in her chest and concentrated on the way her nipples tingled and her thighs clenched with each step.
Because this day—twenty hours left and counting—was all about sex.
It wasn’t about whether or not she still liked Rance. She wasn’t a naive girl. She knew now what she’d been too young to understand then—they couldn’t have had a future together. He’d been a man hell-bent on running from home and she’d been a woman intent on having one. She wanted a happily ever after, and Rance was only interested in the next twenty-four hours. Even if he now wanted her, it was only in the physical sense. He didn’t share her hopes and dreams.
He didn’t love her.
He never had.
Relief washed through her when she made it several steps without him dogging her, along with a strange sense of disappointment.
She shook away the feeling. While she was very close to exploding from sexual frustration, she wasn’t crazy from it. Not yet.
“Meet me in the lobby in an hour for the next workshop,” he called out just as she rounded the far edge of the pool.
Excitement bubbled, along with joy. The same pure, unadulterated joy she’d felt just moments ago.
Ugh. So much for not yet. She was crazy, all right.
But she wasn’t stupid.
RANCE WATCHED DEANIE disappear around a large group of potted palms and mentally recited every Pro-Rodeo steer wrestling champion for the past twenty years.
He wasn’t sure why. He should have had alligator wrangling on the brain right now. But it only seemed fitting for him to think of steer wrestling when it came to Deanie. Partly because she reminded him of his past when he’d loved the sport, and partly because he itched to stomp after her, wrestle her down and take her then and there, the crowd gathered around the bar area be damned.But he wouldn’t go that far. He would push her to the edge, but she had to jump over willingly. Because she wanted to. Because she wanted him.
He focused on the thought, walked over to the lounge chair and picked up his discarded shirt. He wiped the moisture from his eyes and scrubbed at his hair before hooking the soft cotton around his neck. He should have dried off, but at the moment, he needed the cool water drip-dropping down his hot, tight skin before he headed inside to meet Erica and see if she’d come up with a list of the island’s most romantic spots. If he intended to seduce Deanie, he needed something special for the next workshop. Different. Seductive.
His groin throbbed at the thought and he shook his head as he slid his feet into his flip-flops. Despite a thorough soaking in the pool, he was still worked up. Hot. Hard. Shaking, for Christ’s sake.
Why, he hadn’t been this desperate since…
An image rushed at him as he started for the hotel lobby. He remembered the two mile trek home once Deanie had left and he’d climbed from the lake that night. He’d been soaking wet and the night air had been chilly, but neither had been enough to cool the fire that had burned in his gut. He’d gone home, straight past his suitcases that were packed and sitting in the hallway, and into a cold shower. Then he’d crawled into bed and tried to sleep.
Instead, he’d tossed and turned and thought about her the rest of the night. And then he’d packed her memory away the next morning, along with the rest of his past, said goodbye to his brothers—his grandfather had been out riding fence and hadn’t been the least bit interested in seeing him off—and he’d left for the rest of his life.
Just as he would do tomorrow once he’d gotten Deanie out of his system and spent the lust raging inside him.
Oddly enough, he didn’t feel any more excited about the prospect now than he’d felt back then.
8
DEANIE STEPPED onto the crowded elevator and punched the button for the fourteenth floor. She wobbled toward the rear of the elevator—the best she could manage since her feet had launched a full-blown rebellion against the new high heels. She clutched the wrap around her shoulders with one hand and her bag in the other. Leaning back against the far wall, she tried to calm her pounding heart.
Not because of what Rance had said, she reminded herself for the umpteenth time. She was still so worked up and excited because she’d seen him dripping wet.It was all just physical. About the sex.
The elevator stopped and she glanced to see that they’d reached the third floor. Several people got off and the remaining passengers shifted to give each other some breathing room. The doors slid shut and the elevator continued it’s trek upward.
Deanie ignored the hollow feel in her stomach that had nothing to do with the elevator car and everything to do with her encounter with Rance.
Her very close encounter.
She still couldn’t believe she’d gotten up close and personal with Rance, of all people. She’d dreamed of it so many times, built him up in her head to be some super lover that it was a wonder she hadn’t been disappointed. Everyone knew fantasy was always better than reality.
Not in this case.
The real Rance had been a thousand times better. The feel of his skin had been hotter. The touch of his hand more purposeful. His body had felt more muscular and overwhelmingly powerful pressed up against her. He’d smelled richer and more intoxicating. His voice had even sounded huskier and sexier and more sincere than she’d ever imagined when he’d said—
She derailed the last thought, shut her eyes and concentrated on picturing him wet.
Water dripped down his bare torso. Trickling through his dark chest hair. His skin glistening. His eyes gleaming with desire and that flash of regret—
Wait a second.
She rearranged her thoughts, bypassed the whole regret thing and forced her attention down t
he very vivid mental image she’d managed to conjure.
Mmm…He had great abs. Solid. Rippled. Bisected by a funnel of dark, silky hair that disappeared into the waistband of his shorts.
Dinggg!
The elevator stopped again and Deanie glanced up to note that they’d reached the fifth floor. More people climbed out and a few climbed back on.
The doors slid closed, the elevator moved on and Deanie returned to her mental speculation.
She’d been at the waistband, following the line of his zipper down…
Dinggg!
They hit the eighth floor and the rest of the passengers stepped off. A man wearing a white fluffy robe and flip-flops stepped on.
Now where was she? Oh, yeah. She’d been tracing the zipper over a very impressive bulge. Her cheeks burned, but she forced her mind to continue, to imagine what lay beneath the material. She had no doubt that it would be a very substantial package.
Dinggg!
Definitely bigger than the package dangling right in front of her—
She blinked once, twice, but it didn’t disappear. She forced her gaze upward, but it was too late. The man turned and darted off the elevator before she could glimpse his face, the white robe trailing from his hand as he streaked buck-naked down the tenth floor hallway.
“COULD YOU TELL ME the man’s size?”
Deanie smoothed the edge of the gray T-shirt she’d pulled on, along with matching sweatpants, before rushing downstairs to the hotel security office to report the naked man incident.“Well.” She nibbled on her bottom lip as she gave the question some serious thought. “I didn’t have a ruler, but I’d say he was maybe four of five inches.”
“Not his penis size, Miss Codge.” Mr. H., the head of security at Escapades, gave her an exasperated look. He was a large, muscular man—minus any visible hair—who looked like a cross between Aladdin’s genie and Mr. Clean. He wore Chinos and enough gold chains around his thick neck to decrease the national deficit by a nice chunk. “His build,” he continued. “Was he a small man? Medium? Large?”
Tall, Tanned & Texan Page 8