He set down his box of bottles, then jogged across the barbecue area, up the steps to the deck, and popped his head into the door of the newly built arena that housed the mechanical bull.
Kit sat astride the bull, wearing someone’s straw cowboy hat on her head. Her tight black top accentuated every curve. And her cute red cowboy boots peeped out from the hem of her jeans.
Tyler stumbled a few steps forward, mesmerized. He spotted Lila in the crowd, and Bella, but he couldn’t help notice that there were a lot of guys in here. Guys whose eyes were fixed on Kit. Because her straddling that bull was about the sexiest thing imaginable.
He had half a mind to pull her off, but the concentration on her face showed that she was determined to see it through. Ernie was at the controls and Tyler put a hand on his shoulder. “Take it easy, okay?”
Ernie nodded. Kit’s arm went up, the signal that she was ready. Her other hand clutched the bull.
Ernie eased the lever forward and the bull started moving. Tyler was pretty sure the silence in the room was the collective breath held by every guy in the place.
The slow-motion bucking was downright erotic. Kit was good. Ernie cranked it up and the bull turned and dived and turned the other way, and she stayed on no problem. Making it look easy. Making it look like a lot more than just bull riding. He was torn between pride and a protective feeling so extreme that he had to shove his fists in his pockets to keep him from unplugging the entire contraption. Instead he elbowed Ernie. “It’s been way more than eight seconds.”
Ernie emerged from his trance, hit the buzzer and stopped the bull. Kit slid off, hands raised in the air in triumph. And the collective breath slid out in a sigh. Conversation resumed and the music started up again and Tyler felt like something in his DNA had been altered. Or maybe it had happened a long time ago but he was only noticing now. Noticing that there would never be another woman on this planet he wanted more than he wanted Kit Hayes.
* * *
IT WAS LATE, the party was clearing out, and Kit, standing on the deck and swaying to the music in his arms, leaned away and covered her mouth to hide a yawn.
“You’re exhausted,” Tyler said. There were shadows under her eyes he hadn’t noticed before. They lent a vulnerability to her face that he’d almost never seen. “Let me drive you home.”
“No, I’m fine.” She yawned again. “But I think I need to leave, if you don’t mind.”
He wasn’t letting her travel the dark roads half-asleep, even if she lived close by. “I’ll drive you. Then you can give me your car keys and I’ll stop by here on my run in the morning and take your car to your house.”
“I’m not sure I want your sweaty self in my car,” she said with her teasing smile.
“Kit, I’m serious. Let me drive you home.”
She yawned a third time. “Okay.”
She said goodbye to some friends while Tyler checked in with Lila and Tim, who said they’d oversee cleaning and locking up. Then he took Kit’s elbow to guide her to his truck. Halfway there, Lila’s voice stopped them, calling, “Kit, wait!”
They turned and Lila jogged up with the present in her hands. “Hey, thought you might need this,” she said with a wink, pressing the basket into Tyler’s arms.
“Lila!” Kit protested, grabbing the basket from Tyler.
“What? Just looking out for you.” Lila planted a kiss on Kit’s cheek, then went back to the bar, her laugh trailing.
“Girlfriends,” Kit said in explanation and set the basket in the back of his truck.
Inside the cab, she shivered, so he put his jacket around her. The feel of her small shoulders under his hands, the action of wrapping her up, stirred a tenderness in him that he’d been trying to keep below the surface. This is what he wanted to do all the time. To look after her. To be the one to keep her warm when the cold bit in.
She was biting her lip and he remembered how tired she was. The reason she was in his truck right now. He reversed and drove out of the parking lot, heading toward her house in silence. He tried to slow his breath, to calm the intense need to know what she wanted and what, if anything, could happen between them. To cool the heated memories of their kisses earlier tonight, and how she’d looked riding that fake bull. He tried to be satisfied with this. Kit, sleepy and happy after her party, riding in his truck. Watching the dark night flow by with half-open eyes. Trusting him to take care of her and get her home safely.
This might be all they had, and it had to be enough.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
TYLER TRIED TO focus on the county road that ran around the edge of Benson, keeping an eye out for Kit’s street. But he could feel her gaze on him. He glanced her way, wondering if she wanted to talk.
“Could you pull over?” Her voice was a surprise in the silent dark.
Tyler slowed onto the shoulder of the road. “Are you okay?”
“I am.” She unhooked her seat belt and slid across the seat to him. “But I want to kiss you.”
His breath faltered into tiny wisps of oxygen. Her hands slid gently from his jaw to the nape of his neck, and he obeyed when she pulled him softly toward her, toward that mouth he’d dreamed of kissing over and over, toward the satin skin he’d imagined touching again.
He slid a hand carefully into her pretty hair and knew, with the first whisper of her lush soft lips under his, that he was in trouble again. Because what he felt couldn’t be tamed with a kiss. Instead it roared out of the cage he’d been keeping it in all evening. Her mouth was ajar, her dark eyes widening to soulful pools as he pulled away, shaking.
He fumbled for the emergency brake, shoved the gearshift into what he hoped was Park, threw off his seat belt and kissed her again. He lowered his hands to trace the line of her waist. When his hands cupped the curve of her full hips he swore the planet tilted a little on its axis.
Somewhere in all the spinning and the heat of her kisses and the bliss of her tongue as it brushed his, he slid toward her, pulling her onto his lap, deepening the kiss, finding the softness that she hid behind her quick wit and sharp words.
She did something to that part of his brain that reminded him to be cautious with her. She must have felt the same mindless need because she shifted, straddling him. His fingers sought the snap at her waist, unzipping her jeans, needing access to her softest skin there. Then he realized what he’d done and broke away from her blinding kisses, rested her head on his shoulder, grabbing oxygen with each gasping breath.
“Is it too much? Jeez, Kit, this thing between us...”
He could feel the resonance of her low laugh against his shoulder. “It’s fine. It’s good. Really good.”
Gratitude at her reassurance steadied him and her full lips drew him back for more. He kissed her slowly, forcing his hands to stay where they were, losing himself in her breath, in her sweet mouth, in the white-hot heat that seared whenever she shifted her weight over his lap.
A sudden light flooded the cab, causing them to freeze, then a harsh loudspeaker voice blasted the nighttime. “Roll down your windows and remain inside the vehicle.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Kit’s eyes were wide as she slid off him, pulling at her shirt, zipping her jeans, smoothing her hair, tugging his jacket back in place over her shoulders.
Tyler slid to the driver’s side, his mind blank with disbelief that this was really happening. Again. He rolled down the window.
Somehow the deputy must have decided that his massive floodlights weren’t enough illumination because, as he approached, he used a bright flashlight to wipe out what was left of Tyler’s vision. “Everything okay in here?” he asked. “No way!” He lowered the light, and Tyler squinted past the multicolored dots decorating his retinas to see it was the same deputy they’d encountered at the lake.
“Hey,” he said weakly.
<
br /> The deputy peeked into the car. “Nice to see you again, ma’am.”
Kit, in typical Kit-style, burst out laughing. “I wish I could say the same.”
“Do you folks actually have a home? Because I think you need to spend some more time indoors,” the deputy drawled, a slow grin lurking around his boyish mouth.
“At this point, I couldn’t agree more,” Tyler said.
“Ma’am, I assume you’re okay? Do you need anything?”
“Besides privacy?” Kit shook her head. “No, I’m just fine, thanks.”
“Look, I’m not going to give you a ticket, but it’s late. And it seems like whatever you’re doing probably shouldn’t be done at the side of a public road. I’ll just tell you to head on home now.”
“I appreciate that.” Tyler put his hand on the gearshift. “We’ll get going now.”
“Not sure who you’re going home to,” the deputy added. “But you might want to rub off that lipstick before you get there.”
Tyler glanced at himself in the rearview mirror. Kit’s lipstick was everywhere. On his mouth, his cheeks, across his nose.
He glanced at her and she dissolved in peals of laughter. She pulled a packet of tissues from her purse. “Sorry about that.”
Tyler wiped his face, knowing he probably smeared red everywhere. “How many bumper stickers would it take for you to not tell this story to everyone you know?”
The deputy grinned. “I’m not sure there are enough bumper stickers in the world for that. But I’d take a nice night out at that restaurant you’re opening.”
“Done.” Kit said it the same moment Tyler did.
“Well, I’ll see you around, then,” the deputy said. “Though hopefully not in the middle of the night.”
“I’m not sure we can promise that,” Kit said. “We do get off work pretty late.”
“I guess I’ll look forward to many good meals at the Dusty Saddle, then. Drive safely now.”
They listened to his footsteps crunching over the roadside gravel. To the slam of his car door and the blur of his lights as he pulled away. “Unbelievable.” Despite his humiliation, Tyler felt a grin spreading across his face. “I think it’s a sign.”
“I agree.” Kit shoved her thoroughly mussed hair from her face. “It’s a sign that we cannot be trusted after dark.”
“Or maybe it’s a sign that we should take this thing between us indoors.”
He waited, pulse thudding, for her response. Finally a smile tipped up the corners of her mouth. “You know, I think you might be right. Want to come over?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Then what are you waiting for?”
“I have no idea.” He buckled his seat belt and stepped on the gas, and got them to her cottage in no time. Jumping out, he raced to open her door, and she slid into his arms. He kissed her long and slow. Then he pulled away to lock up his truck. “It’s always a pleasure getting busted by the sheriff with you,” he teased her. “But I’ll be glad for some privacy.”
She glanced around. “Let’s go in. He’s a nice guy but he has a bad habit of showing up right when things get interesting.”
He followed her toward her front door. “Is that what this is between us? Interesting?”
She shot him a look so full of promise it almost brought him to his knees. “I think it’s going to be very interesting,” she said.
* * *
KIT LED TYLER into her house feeling that nothing was ever going to be the same again. Because even though this thing between them couldn’t last, it mattered. And it burned hot enough to alter the very chemistry of her being.
He shut the door behind them. And her small hallway suddenly felt a whole lot smaller.
But she’d invited this. She wanted this. And what the hell, if she was going to risk so much of her heart she might as well burn up in the process. So she reached for his shirt. Pulled it over his head. And pointed down the hall.
He looked dazed. Happy. He nodded and led the way.
She watched the muscles of his back as he walked. The way his jeans clung to him so well. It hit her then. His butt was world famous. Adorning billboards and magazines for jeans and underwear across the globe. The thought brought a smile to her face. It was a really, really nice butt.
“Left,” she breathed, when he hesitated in the hall, unfamiliar with her home. That one word was hard to form, she was so mesmerized by him.
In her bedroom he stopped, as if not sure what to do next. So she did it for him. Kicking off her boots, pulling off her top, her jeans, while he watched intently. In bra and panties, she slid into the smooth cotton sheets. Watched as he pulled off his clothes, desire stopping her breath when he stood before her, stark naked and glorious.
She made room for him, and gasped as he lay down beside her, the feel of his skin against hers so foreign but so delicious. She faced him on her side, her fingertips skimming his hair, the faint ridge of his cheekbone. He kissed them as they passed his mouth, a featherlight kiss that sent shivers.
“Are you good?” he asked.
“Very,” she assured him. Now that they were here, now that this was happening, she knew it was right. If she was never with him, if she never followed these feelings to this outcome, she’d always regret it.
She ran her fingers over his chest, tracing a scar there. “I didn’t notice this before.”
That scar said he’d come close to dying a few times. That he could have been like Gray, stuck in a wheelchair forever. She fought the fear for him that made no sense after the fact.
He must have seen her distress because he took her hand and kissed the palm. Then placed it on his heart. She traced the arc of his ribs, the solid wall of his abs. He watched her with narrowed eyes, his breathing hitching as she skimmed the top of his hip. Then he rose on an elbow to slide his lips over her mouth, to push insistently for a deeper kiss. He wove his fingers through her hair and leaned so she rolled onto her back. His hand cupped her breast, his fingers traced the satin of her bra and his lips caught her low moan.
He found the clasp of her bra and released it, catching the strap and sliding it down one arm. She helped, reached for her panties, wanting them gone, unable to stand anything between them any longer.
His hands traveled restless over her skin.
“You’re incredible,” he whispered in her ear, his warm breath waking every nerve there, tuning all her senses only to him. His voice, his kisses, his hands as they heated her skin and slid across her stomach, her hip, between her legs. She moved into his touch, his circling fingers pure, thought-destroying sensation.
He paused and she opened her eyes, his slight smile coming into focus. His words came out on ragged breath. “Protection.”
Oh, that. How could she have invited a man over and not thought of that? She put a hand over her forehead. “I don’t have any.” Then she remembered. “Lila’s basket. It’s in the truck.”
“I’m on it.” He jumped up, naked, and disappeared down the hall. She heard the front door open, and after a pause, slam shut. Then Tyler was back, diving into bed with chilled skin and the basket in hand.
Kit lay back, hand to mouth, giggling. “I can’t believe you went out there. Naked. Did anyone see you?”
His grin was unrepentant. “I didn’t stop to find out. I had more important business to attend to.” He untied the ribbon that held the cellophane shut.
“Lila said it was adults-only.” Kit sat up and peered in. She pulled out a box that looked promising. Until she read the label. “Vibrating egg?” She cast it aside.
Tyler picked it up and examined the box with interest. “This could be fun.” He gave it a little shake. “My friends never give me presents like this.”
Kit laughed. “I think she wanted me to get out more. I guess I’ve been a lit
tle boring lately.”
Tyler leaned over and kissed her bare shoulder. “Not a word I’d ever use to describe you. And this thing, by the way, is for staying in. I don’t know what our deputy would say if he found us out and about with a vibrating egg.”
Kit giggled and dumped the basket, ignoring the tubes of massage cream and a packet of edible panties in favor of the neon pink condom packets. “There.”
“Are you sure you don’t want to try these?” Tyler held up the panties.
“Another time.” She tried to ignore the hollow feeling that they probably didn’t have too many other times. She was leaving soon.
Tyler took the condom packets from her and set them on the nightstand. He scooped up the other contents, tossed them in the basket and set it on the floor. “Now, where were we?” he said, and she saw that his smile had gone feral, no more jokes and teasing.
He kissed her down onto the bed, continued down her body, erasing all her thoughts of being anywhere but here, under his hot mouth and his generous hands. He loved her until there was only one feeling—a consuming, aching need for him.
When she asked, in a voice she barely recognized as hers, he ripped open the hot-pink wrapper and sheathed himself. He kissed her, exploring her mouth, taking his time, until she tasted only him, breathed only him, felt only the weight of his hard body over hers, and then, better than anything she’d ever known, the strength of him within her.
Mindlessly, her body followed the rhythm he set, as if she’d always known it, as if she’d always followed it while they’d worked and talked and teased over the past months. His strength had been hers lately and nothing changed now as he murmured “so beautiful” again and again in her ear, as she kissed his neck, his shoulder and finally, clung to him, his kisses catching her cries before they left her lips.
Afterward he held her close, her head on his chest, kissing her hair, caressing her shoulder. She was grateful he said nothing. There was nothing to say in the face of this new knowledge. That there was some spark so fiery, some emotion so intense between them, that Kit had seen tears in his eyes to match her own.
His Last Rodeo Page 20